The Lovely Blues
by holtzyman
Summary: Dr. Regina Mills is a resident at St. Claire's Hospital. Dr. Emma Swan is a newly beginning intern, who is assigned to Dr. Mills. There's two rules to being an intern, and Emma Swan is about to break both: 1) Don't make your resident mad. 2.) Don't fall in love with your resident. Doctor! AU
1. Chapter 1

Emma taps the side of her head and sighs, putting down her pen. She'll never get this. The words are jumbling together, like trying to read a road sign while going over 100 miles per hour. She gets up and grabs the coffee pot, then groans because of course, it's empty.

She checks the clock and decides that if she wants a shower, she won't have time to make a new batch. Damn. She gives one last look at the letter she was trying to write, and then goes to start her shower.

The warm water feels good on her skin. She hums and reaches for her shampoo. Strawberry, like always. It's basic and she knows it, but it was her favorite. Plus, she has matching conditioner, which is kind of hard to come by.

Emma loves showers. They're her private place and she can think about anything here. Sometimes she thinks the most ridiculous thoughts. 'Is the 's' or 'c' silent in scent?' Or, 'Why do we say "heads up" when we're suppose to duck?'

Sometimes she gets philosophical. 'There are thousands of days in my life that I have completely forgotten and I don't know how I feel about that.'

When the water runs cold, Emma knows she can't delay it anymore and steps out, wrapping a too short, ratty towel around her body. It only goes an inch below her belly button, but nobody is around to see her anyway. These towels are perfectly fine, so why waste money to get new ones?

She dresses in her usual tank top and skinny jeans along with boots and her favorite red leather jacket. She'll get her scrubs at the hospital today, but she needs to bring her own shoes, so she grabs those in one hand and her keys and phone in the other. Times like these she thinks a purse would be good, then she snorts and rolls her eyes. It's never going to happen.

As she arrives at her yellow bug, she actually hesitates before going inside. It'll be her first drive to work. Her first day on the job, and her trusty old (stolen) bug is going to get here there. She rolls her eyes at herself and gets in.

Today will probably be crappy, she figures. All first days are. Even in the first week will be bad. But she's still excited to get to St. Claire's, so excited that she runs a red light. Thankfully no one is around to see it, though she bets she'll get a ticket in the mail soon. She curses herself and drives carefully.

The building looms over. She already parked, walked out of the garage, and is now standing in front of the set of sliding doors. "Just go in, Emma," she mumbles. She clutches her shoes and forces herself to head inside.

If she's honest, she doesn't know where to go next. She already had her name tag, she got it last week. She has a momentarily freak out for not thinking of this ahead of time.

"Intern?" A man appears besides her. He wore the blue scrubs of St' Claire's. His eyes were covered in eyeliner and he had a strong Irish accent.

Emma nods her head silently, her body relaxing just a little bit.

"Don't worry, you aren't the first I'm redirecting today." The man sends a small smile that makes Emma actually feel better. "Go down that there hall and make a left and walk down the hall until you come to a set of double doors. There will be e a sign or something." He flashes her a bright smile this time and continued. "Well, I _think_ there might be a sign."

"What do I do once I'm there?" Emma asks.

"You'll wait for the Chief to talk to all of you interns. Then you're on your own, sweetheart."

Being called sweetheart usually bothered Emma, but she got the feeling he probably called everyone that. She flashes him her own smile. "Thank you, Dr . . ." She trails off to look at his name tag, but he already has a hand out.

"Doctor Jones. Killian Jones."

Emma shakes his hand. "Emma Swan."

"Nice to meet you, Emma. Now you might want to get a move on."

Emma looks at the time and almost blanches. "Right. Thanks." Then she's off, going down the hall, making a left, and then going down the other hall. When she gets to the double doors, she pauses and takes a deep breath. (There's no sign.)

'_My future starts now_.'

There was already a lot of interns inside when she entered the room. They ranged from all ages, too, the oldest being a 59 year old man. Emma figured it was never too late to chase your dreams.

She glances at the clock and realizes she's exactly on time, meaning she can already tell all her now co-workers are suck ups.

In the next minute to come, three more people fill into the room but that's it. Then the door is blown open and silence fills the room as they all see the chief enter. Emma has saw him before, (never met him, though) and she still can't believe he's chief. He looks like he's in his early fifties, with a few spots of white in his otherwise fully brown hair. He wears a black dress shirt with a purple tie, black slacks, and leans a bit on a cane.

"Hello, everybody." He shoots the room a smile, but it's cold and almost teasing. "I'm Chief Gold, as you all probably know." And he jumps right into a speech about how lucky they all are, how by the time they're done with the year, they will hate this job, how to follow the rules of the hospital, respect your resident, and quite frankly, it's starting to sound a lot like every single teacher's speech on the first day of school.

She barely even realize they're moving until someone nudges her. She blushes and quickly follows behind everybody. He brings them to the intern locker room. "This is where you will change into your scrubs." Gold points to a bench that is lined with blue scrubs. "Everyone, please grab two sets in your size." As everyone makes a dash to grab them, he shouts out, "Your size, people! I do not want any of that baggy pants thing going on."

Emma forces herself not to roll her eyes and she swipes twp pairs of pants and two shirts. She's still holding her sneakers in her hand. She's the only one who has to change her shoes. Everyone else is wearing theirs. (It makes Emma grin. She's always the odd one out.)

"Now," Gold continues on once it seems like everyone has two pairs, "I will leave, you will change, and then an attending will be in here to give you your residents."

"Wait." A pale hand shoots in the hair and everyone turns to a small woman with a pixie cut. Right now she's looking like a school teacher and she blushes once everyone looks at her. "Sorry. Um, you want the girls and guys to change together?"

Emma wondered if she really just asked that. Gold hadn't previously split the girls and guys up, so it was assumed they would all be in the same locker room.

Gold gives the woman a hard stare, but Emma has to hand it to her because Pixie Cut doesn't back down. "This isn't high school," Gold eventually says. "You're all adults." With that he leaves.

He hadn't gave them all locker numbers, so people still around for a few seconds before Emma rolls her eyes and claims a locker as her own by opening it and finally putting her shoes down. There's a slight mumble as they all follow suit, and Emma once again prides herself on being a leader, not a follower.

She strips off her jacket and folds it neatly into her locker. She pulls on her blue shirt and hesitates as her fingers loop her jean's belt loops. A quick look around tells her most people are already fully dress and that no one is looking, so she quickly takes off her skinny jeans and puts on her scrub pants.

Emma cringes as she puts on her white shoes. She never would have been caught dead in shoes like these, but she highly doubted she could wear her boots. She shuts her locker and waits anxiously for the attending.

Some of the inters have started talking now. "I really don't mind who my resident is, as long as it's not Regina Mills," she hears a British, maybe Australia voice say.

"Why?" asks the person she must be talking to.

Emma sneaks a peak to see a pretty girl with curly brown hair nod her head. "My friend Ruby works here and she says she's the meanest."

"I think I also heard that," says the girl opposite of her.

Emma rolls her eyes and looks at her phone. They should be glad they're here. She knows herself she'll be happy no matter what.

"Alright everyone, listen up." Emma quickly locks in her phone and does as told. An attending is in the room, holding a clipboard. "French, Hopper, and . . ." The attending narrows his eyes at his clipboard before shrugging and looking back up. "And Charming. You're all with Dr. De Vil."

The Brit/Aussie lines up at the door and so does the man with Charming as a last name, along with a tall guy with glasses, who looks like he should be more of shrink than a doctor. Before they leave, the attending stops them. " Dr. De Vil is at at the nurses station. Meet her there."

Emma feels her palms start to sweat. She doesn't want to show it, doesn't want to show she's nervous, so she just listens closely as the attending lists off more names.

"Sea, Blanchard, and Swan. You're with Mills." With a jolt, Emma realizes that's her and she quickly stands at the door. She's met with two other women. (The Brit/Aussie had said '_Regina_ Mills' so Emma figured it would be a group of all girls. Should be fun.)

The attending barely looks at them. "Nurses station. Alright, next group."

Emma heads out with the two other woman. She notices she's with Pixie Cut. Yeah, this definitely should be fun.

Nobody speaks as they walk to the nurses station. A bunch of residents are there, chatting probably about their soon to be inters, except, of course, for one. She stands off to the side with arms crossed and rolling her eyes occasionally.

She's the first to see them. "I'm the next to get them, so you must be mine," is her way of greeting. She nods curtly at them. "Here." She gives them each a pager, and is it just her, or did Emma notice that she made sure not to touch any of their hands?

"Walk with me." They do as told and start to follow her. "I'm Dr. Mills. Names?"

"Ursula Sea," introduces the girl with coffee colored skin.

" Ursula Sea?" Dr. Mills says the name in a disbelieving tone before Emma and Pixie Cut could introduce themselves. (Not that Emma could blame her, really.)

"My parents saw the chance and took it," Ursula explains.

(Emma thinks that if that was her name, she would have changed it the minute she turned 18. No way would she allow herself to be stuck with a name like "Ursula Sea" for the rest of her life. Suddenly, Emma was glad for her name, despite always thinking it was too common growing up.)

"Great." Dr. Mills tone is so monotone that Emma can't tell if it's true or not. "You two," she then orders with a quick nod over her shoulder.

"Mary Margaret Blanchard."

Emma licks her lips. "Emma Swan."

"Well, Emma, thank you for being the only one with a normal name." Before Emma could process the comment, Dr. Mills suddenly stopped at a room. "Now, this will be your first case. I will assign assignments as I see fit inside."

She enters the room and they have no choice but to follow.

A little girl is lying on the bed, and Emma feels her stomach drops as she remembers reading the sign as the entered the ward. 'Pediatrics'. And because why not? Of course they would visit a sick child first.

"Everyone, this is Carla Rut." Dr. Mills smiles down at the girl.

Emma notices that Mills' voice is much softer. It's nice and comforting.

"Seven years old," Ursula offers as she scans the clipboard Regina had handed to her. Emma quickly looked over her should, as Blanchard was already next to her. Her voice wavers as she reads the next part. "Leukemia."

"Has had seven surgeries in the past two years," Emma reads.

"Make that eight now," Dr. Mills says. "Carla's sister's bone marrow is a match. They're prepping the sister now for the transplant. Sea, your job is to prep Carla for the surgery. Blanchard, Swan, come with me."

The two follows Dr. Mills out of the room and Emma wonders just what the hell had she gotten herself into.

~()~

At lunch, Emma sits with Blanchard and Charming. She thought all the interns would stick with their group, but instead everyone found themselves sitting near people they actually like. This remindes Emma of high school and it makes her nervous because she hasn't made friends yet, as middle school-y as that sounded.

While Emma had been searching for an empty table, Blanchard had called her over. She had already been sitting with Nolan and he seemed nice enough so she didn't object.

"I washed my hands like fifteen times and I'm still not comfortable picking up my sandwich," Mary Margaret says and Emma snorts into her orange juice. Poor her. Mills had stuck her on rectal exams, and if Emma didn't know better, she would say Dr. Mills had a personal vendetta against the other woman.

"Here." David picks up Mary's Margaret's sandwich for her and lifts it to her lips. She smiles sweetly at him and takes a bite. She manages a thanks around the bite with a dopey grin, and Emma bets they'll be together by the time their intern year is over.

He goes to give her another bite but this time M&amp;M blushes and manages to stammer out that she has it from here. He blushes but still manages a grin and yeah, married with a child on the way by the end of the year no doubt.

"So Emma," David stuffs his mouth with pasta and lands red sauce on his cheek, "where you from?"

She gets this asked a lot. She's really not sure where's she's from, because she's lived in every single state in the U.S. Even if it was for as little as a day, (she got there, broke a plate on accident, and was sent back the next day) she still has lived in every state.

But Boston was her favorite city, so she says from there.

This makes them both stop eating. Mary Margaret glances up and wrinkles her nose. "How did you get from Boston to New York?"

It's really not a story she's ready to share yet. She remembers the happiness she had in Boston, the fun she had. Her friends, her boyfriend, her dorm in college. Then because she remembers those memories, she starts to remember why she left and she swirls her jello with a fork.

"I just needed a change, yaknow?"

They nod, but Emma knows they really don't know.

She wants to change the subject, and she even is about to, when her pager goes off. 'Saved by the bell,' she thinks as she stands. She notices with disdain no one else is getting paged.

"I have to go to the clinic," Emma says in confusion. Why was Regina paging her there? That was what she was assigned to in the morning. Runny noses and over worried mothers wasn't exactly what Emma had in mind, but to hey, it was also better than prepping a dying kid for surgery, doing rectal exams, or, as David told her, having to help the scary Dr. De Vil with paper work.

"See you guys later." Emma remembers the rule Dr. Mills had told them: always run when paged. She curses and starts to run. She leaves her tray, but knows M&amp;M or David will through it away for her.

When she gets to the clinic, she's out of breath and can barely walk over to where Dr. Mills is standing. Emma hadn't known her for long, but she can tell the older woman is trying very hard not to roll her eyes as she talks to the annoying mom Emma was talking to this morning.

"Dr. Swan, there you are." Regina does roll her eyes this time, but it's at Emma. "Mrs. Allan says she talked to you this morning about her child?"

Emma looks down at the child that's not really a child, but a 16 year old girl who has been quiet through everything. "Yes, Dr. Mills." She's confused and she doesn't know where this was going.

"Well, she says you did nothing to help and told her to go home."

Ah, Emma realizes. That would do it. "I did, Dr. Mills."

"She basically told us she was useless!" screeches the mom and Emma wants so badly to cover her head with her hands. How much longer did she have until her night was over?

"No," Emma says. "I told you that there was nothing wrong with your daughter and that you should just go home and talk to her."

Now Dr. Mills was giving Emma a confused look and Emma bets everything she owns that Mrs. Allan hadn't told Dr. Mills what was 'wrong' with her daughter. "Mrs. Allan's daughter is-"

"A son!" screeches Mrs. Allan, catching the attention of many other people in the clinic. "My _son_ is a boy! Now he's trying to say he's a girl. His name is not Jessica, it's Joshua! His name Joshua, he's a he, and I'm telling you both, there's something wrong in his head!"

Dr. Mills finally realizes what's going on and shares a look with Dr. Mills. "Ma'am." Dr. Mills says slowly, "there really is nothing you can do. Dr. Swan was right. Nothing is wrong with your dau-child."

"Are you kidding me? He's trying to be a girl!"

Emma can't hold it in anymore. The words seem to tumble out of her in a page of red furry. "Mrs. Allan, your daughter is transgender. She has confided in you because she thought she could trust you. Because she loves you. There's nothing wrong with her, but maybe's there's something wrong with you for judging the child you're suppose to love no matter what. I suggest you go home, have a glass of wine, and realize you have a perfectly normal _daughter_."

She doesn't see the fist coming. She's so livid from her speech that it completely knocks her off guard. Her nose immediately starts spewing blood. There's a scream from the daughter, a gasp from Dr. Mills, and Emma hears no more, because the shock of it all had her tumbling back, tripping over her own two feet, and landing hard on the floor.

Her brain rattles inside her head, it goes fuzzy, and then it just goes dark.

~()~

When Emma wakes up, she immediately wants to go back to sleep because her head is _pounding_. It hurts like she's hung over and Emma's eyes fly open because she doesn't remember getting drunk.

"Careful," a voice warns once Emma eyes close painfully to get away from the harsh light. "How are you felling?"

Emma opens her eyes slowly to see Dr. Mills leaning over her, and it all comes back to her now. She groans and clutches her head. "My head hurts," she whines like a small child.

Dr. Mills gets out a smile. "I would imagine so." She must somehow know Emma's throat feels like the Sahara Desert, because she hands Emma a cup of water, which she drowns in one gulp. "You took a nasty spill," Dr. Mills continues.

Emma nodded slowly. "Yeah. How's my nose?"

"Not broken. Dr. De Vil says it should heal fast."

Emma remembers De Vil was head of Plastic and it relaxes her. "That's good. How long have I been out?"

Dr. Mills checks her watch. "Half an hour. Blanchard has been asking for an update on you every minute. I caught Charming trying to sneak in to see you five minutes ago on his way to prep."

Emma scratches her head and carefully sits up. "I only met them today though."

Dr. Mills shrugs. "Signs of good friends."

Emma suspected Regina didn't have a lot of friends, but didn't dare in her wildest dreams bring that up. "What happened to Mrs. Allan?"

"Security was called. I told them you probably wouldn't want to press charges so they just escorted them out."

Emma nodded. "Lucky for Mrs. Allan, I'm nice," she grouches, and Dr. Mills actually laugh.

Her laugh was very pretty, Emma notes. Then her pager goes off and she sighs. "Duty calls. You're good to go back to work now, I want you to do the after surgery prep on Carla Rut. She should be out by now." With that she's gone and Emma sighs.

Her boss is is one strange lady, but she grabs her pager off the bed side table and heads off to see Carla.

"Hey there," she says as she enters the little girl's room. "How you feeling?"

"Okay," Carla says. Her voice is raw and horse. "How's my sister?"

"Actually kiddo, I don't know, but how about when I'm done I go check on her, okay?"

Carla nods silently and Emma starts to explain the small things she was going to do. Halfway through Emma explaining how she was going to take Carla's blood pressure, the little girl stops her.

"It's okay," she says. "I've done this before."

Emma forces a smile on her face. It's upsetting this little girl had to go through all of this. It's upsetting any kid has to go through this. "Carla, you're very strong." Emma gets the blood pressure numbers and charts it down before saying she'll be checking vitals now.

And then it just all goes to hell. Carla starts to cough. It's a little one at first and it quickly becomes her not breathing because she's coughing so much. "Carla, are you okay?" Wide wide eyes Emma sits the child up.

Carla shakes her head no and Emma is about to page Dr. Mills, when suddenly Carla vomits blood and then she faints. "I NEED A CRASH CART!" Emma screams and not even three seconds later five nurses are pushing in a cart. "Page Dr. Mills!" demands Emma, but she knows in her heart it won't be fast enough.

It seems like the paddles take ten years to charge before Emma can place them over the little girl's chest. It doesn't work, so they charge again. And again. And again. And again until a nurse is saying it's too late, until the flatline has been beeping in Emma's ears for five minutes, until a gentle hand is resting on Emma's wrist while another one is making her drop the paddles.

"Come on, Emma." Dr. Mills looks at the clock. "Time of death, 1:23 pm."

And then Emma is being pulled away and there are tears running down her face. She was told in medical school not to get too attached to the patients, but this was a little girl she failed to save. On her first day she killed a patient. How was that fear?

She's aware of being sat down on a bed an in on call room, aware of Dr. Mills sitting next to her. It's silent as Dr. Mills just allows Emma to cry. "I never even meant her parents," Emma sobs, head buried in her resident's shoulder, and she's aware it's probably against the rules. "I mean, where were they?!"

"She never had any," Dr. Mills says, her voice rising as she gazed at Emma. "Her sister, who was 21, was taking care of her. Carla had to go through her surgeries before they could get the transplant. She had many other problems. There was nothing you could have done."

"I could have saved her!" Emma didn't mean to snap, but she was so angry. She wipes at her eyes, but it was kind of useless because the tears just kept falling. "I could have saved her, Dr. Mills."

"Regina." Dr. Mills rubs circles into Emma's back, making the blonde question how she knew it calms her down. "Right now, I'm just Regina, Emma."

Emma nods and relaxes into the touch. "How did she . . ." She can't get out the question without fully bursting into tears.

"Graft-versus-host disease," Regina answers. "It usually happens over time in a few weeks, but in rare cases, it is almost immediate."

Graft-versus-host disease: the body of the transplant receiver does not recognize the transplant and it attacks it. Usually takes place over a few weeks, but can happen almost immediately in rare cases. If not picked up early, it can result in death.

"I'm sorry I'm a mess," Emma suddenly says, sniffling, in dire need of a tissue.

Regina seems to read her mind and pulls a clean stack out of her pocket. Emma smiles her thanks and blows her nose, then tosses it in the nearby trashcan. "I mean, I'm a doctor. I shouldn't be like this."

"It was your first patient, Emma," Regina tells her. "Your first patient on your first day. Your first patient dying is awful. Your first patient dying on you first day is horrible and barely ever happens."

"Still." Emma swipes another tissue to dab at her eye. "I shouldn't be so upset."

"Emma, stop." Regina gently turns Emma around to she can look the blonde in her eyes. "I barely came back after my first patient died." Emma glances up, intrigued. "I just survived my first week of being an intern. The next week started and I still felt high on life. Then we get this patient. He's perfectly healthy, just comes in for a check up on a past surgery."

Regina breathes in deeply and Emma knows this must still hurt Regina to this day. "One second I'm taking his blood pressure, listening him go on and on about his pregnant wife, and then . . . he just falls. He's dead by the time he hits the floor."

"An aneurysm," Emma guesses.

Regina nods. "I blamed myself for the longest time because I was there when he was talking. I was taking his blood pressure. He was so alive and then he just wasn't. I was so mad. He was there for many checkups after his surgery. How did no one catch it? But he was there to get his appendix removed. No one thought to check his brain.

"I was just so angry. I even blew up at my resident. I was so mad, so upset that no one bothered to check . . . My resident should have fired me for flipping out, for causing a scene . . . Instead he brought me to an on call room, sat me down, and told me the loss of his first patient. He told me his resident had done the same to him, because his resident had done the same."

"So it's like a tradition."

Regina nods. "Yeah, you could say that."

Emma grins. "Thanks for sharing it with me."

Regina nods and stands up. She offers her hand to Emma, who gladly takes it. "Thank you," she says.

Dr. Mills nods. "I suggest we both get back to work."

Emma checks the time and groans. "It's only 2. This day just seems to go on forever."

Dr. Mills gives a small smile. "First days always do."

~()~

Emma scribbles furiously on a chart, realizes it's not legible, and crosses it out. She's not sure if she's happy or not doing paperwork for a Dr. Diaz. She hasn't even met the dude and she's forced to do his paperwork.

Thankfully, she's almost done, and ten minutes later she hands it in. She just happens to be in the emergency room to meet Dr. Diaz when the doors are blown open and two EMTs are rolling in a stretcher with a woman strapped tightly in. She doesn't have anything else to do. In fact, she was just about to go find Dr. Mills to see what to do.

Emma goes to her, along with a resident and an attending. "22 year old female, pregnant. Had a seizure and fell down some stairs. On the way here she had multiple seizures and her heart stopped once." The EMT rattles off blood pressure and vital signs as Emma got a look at the girl.

"Right." The resident turns to Emma and frowns. "You aren't one of mine, but you're here so get to it."

Emma straps on some gloves and thinks about her jealous the other interns will be, especially M&amp;M, who, as far as Emma knew twenty minutes ago, was still on rectal exams.

Maybe the rest of her day will be alright.

~()~

When she gets home, the first thing Emma does is strip and throws herself on her bed. She breathes in the smell of freshly washed sheets and smiles happily, her eyelids already drooping. She couldn't wait to fall asleep.

All the other interns had gone out to a bar near the hospital. Emma was tempted to join them, but after her day, she just wanted to go home. It had gotten better once her ER patient came in. They found the cause of her cause of seizures and operated. Both woman and baby made it. Emma didn't get to scrub in, but she was allowed to watch from the gallery, which still made a lot of her fellow interns jealous.

Still though. It was long and hard. Emma didn't really know what to expect for her first day on the job, but this wasn't it. First days always sucked, but Emma wouldn't classify today as sucking. More like weird. Yeah, that's it. It was a weird day and she was just glad she was home.

Emma barely manages to slip under her covers. Just as she was about to fall into a deep sleep, her eyes snaps open as she realized tomorrow she will have to do it All. Over. Again.


	2. Chapter 2

Regina's shower was cut short by her pager blaring. Usually she doesn't take her phone into the bathroom, but her pager was a must. She sighs and reaches a hand out blindly, trying to gasp the dang thing. Once she does, she brings it to her face and rolls her eyes. It's one of her idiotic interns and it just says they need help with a patient.

They really need to learn to page better, because Regina won't ruin her shower and her morning with her son for a silly page like that. If they page her again, she'll consider going in, _if _it's something good. For now, she'll finish her shower.

She takes pride in pampering herself in the morning. (When she's not rushing to get to work that is.) Some of those doctors come in like they just rolled out of bed, and why that does usually happen, a little makeup and a hair brush really goes a long way.

Regina puts on her favorite purple blouse under her blue scrubs. You can only see the sleeves, but it's pretty, and she likes the way it looks when she's not wearing the white coat.

Henry is already at the table when she gets to it. Her little three year old is trying to see over the table in his "big boy" chair. He already has ketchup on his cheeks. He has obviously dressed himself this morning, because his blue cat shirt doesn't match his pink shorts. She bets anything his socks don't match either.

"Good morning, Henry," she says,

"Morning, Momma," he greets, lifting his little sippy cup to his mouth. "When you gotta go to work?"

"When do you have to," Regina corrects, then rubs his hair. He gives her a lopsided smile and she laughs. "Soon, sweetheart. Finish up breakfast so we can wipe you off."

It's the same thing every morning. She wakes up, makes breakfast, gets Henry, and gets in the shower. By the time she returns, Henry has decided to dress himself and to make a mess with his breakfast. She'll wipe him down, fix his clothes, then drop him off at the daycare.

Henry nods and takes a bite of eggs. Then he declares to be done and Regina doesn't have time to make him eat more. She can practically feel that her pager is going to go off again any minute, so she quickly grabs some baby wipes and cleans him up. Then, because Henry still wants to wear the cat shirt, she puts him in some blue shirts.

She's about to fix his socks, but then her pager goes off. Regina sighs and scoops him up in his arm. She grabs the diaper bag (which isn't really a diaper bag, considering Henry is almost fully potty trained) and makes sure everything is inside it on her way to the car: change of clothes just encase Henry has an accident, some snacks, a couple juice boxes, and his favorite toys.

By the time she's in the car, her pager has gone off again and she remembers she hasn't cleared the table. She still has to drop him off at the daycare. There's no time to go in and clean the table, no matter how much it bothers her.

"Alright, Henry, you good to go?" She looks in the rear view mirror. He gives a thumbs up and Regina backs out of her driveway.

She barely has time to say goodbye to Henry when she drops him off. Then she's back on the road and now speeding to get to the hospital. When she does, she shrugs on her coat, clips on her name tag, and rushes through the double doors. Right away she sees her bumbling idiots. They all rush towards her at one and she holds up a hand, silencing them.

"I didn't have time to clean my breakfast table," she announces. "As we speak, there is eggs rotting away in ketchup on my thousand dollar mahogany table. So, before you speak, all you better have a damn good reason for paging me three times."

She almost smirks at the way her interns are suddenly silent. She sees Swan look at them before clearing her throat and speaking up. "Car crash. Dad needs both legs amputated, the mother was dead on impact, the baby boy is suffering from serious wounds, and the ten year old girl is bleeding into her brain."

Regina nods, accepting this information, before walking to the closest ER room, which holds the ten year old. "Right. Swan, stay here. Sea, you're with Dad. Blanchard, Baby." When none of them move, Regina shouts, "Now!"

They all scramble over each other and Regina rolls her eyes. She left food on the table for this. Why did she have to get these ones? She heard from the rumor mill that so far, the best interns were Charming and someone named White. From her eyes, Swan wasn't so bad, really.

She turns to Dr. Swan. "Swan, page Dr. Hood. He's head of heart." Regina grabs a syringe filled of liquid and put it in the girl's IV. It would hopefully slow down the bleeding.

"Heart? Dr. Mills, the patient, is um-"

"Don't you think I know that?" snaps Regina. "Her heart could be the gateway to why her brain is bleeding. Now, Swan, page Hood!"

Dr. Swan does that. Then she helps Regina. The latter looks at the former and decides Swan is good in a crisis once she's sure of herself. But Dr. Swan was hesitant, which Dr. Mills takes notice of. She's in charge of these interns, and it's her job to teach them. So, that's when Regina decides to do. She'll teach Dr. Swan, get her to be more sure of herself.

Regina can see the penitential in Emma, in all her inters. It's her job to get that penitential out of them, and she knows that by the time her interns leave her, ready to go out and try all by themselves, she'll have taught them right.

~()~

Her inters were off doing (hopefully) what Regina had told them too, and Regina just got done with Swan and Hood. Hood had said that it was her heart after all, causing Regina to smirk over at Emma, in a told-you-so way.

Now her feet hurt and she figures she had a few minutes before being needed somewhere else. She lays down in the best on call room (the one with the decent sheets and it actually locks) and manages to actually catch five minutes before her phone is going off. She frowns and reaches for it. Most of the inters still think their phones have to be kept in their lockers, but if you get a clip for your pants, you can have it. (As long as you follow the obvious rules, of course.)

"Hello?" Regina speaks into the phone.

"Hello, Dr. Mills. This is Karen from Sunshine's Day Care Center."

"Yes, I know who are you, Karen." Regina sighs and sits up, rubbing at her temples. She could have gotten another five minutes of sleep. This better be good. "What's up?"

"I'm afraid Henry is no longer welcome here at Sunshine's."

Now Regina shoots out of the bed. She angrily feels her heart race. "What? Why?"

"There was a bit of an incident. Another little boy stole Henry's juice box." Regina's stomach drops as she realizes where this is probably going. "Henry got mad and punched the little boy in the face."

"Well he had every right to!" Regina says loudly in the phone. She should be defending her three year old, saying she knows her little boy would never do something like that. But she's knows that's not true, not in the least bit. "That boy stole the juice box that _I _packed for Henry!"

"Dr. Mills," Karen say in an agonizing voice, and Regina wants to punch her. "I understand it was wrong of the boy to steal Henry's juice box, but he could have come to an adult and-"

"And by then the boy would have finished it!" Regina doesn't know why she's getting so defensive over a juice box. Perhaps it was just the moral of the whole story. Still, she doesn't like where this is heading at all.

"Dr. Mills. Violence is never the answer. Now, you have to pick Henry up immediately and I'm afraid he is to not return."

Regina sighs and runs a hand through her hair. She doesn't have time to pick up her son, not really. Maybe she can stick her interns on a friend. "Fine," Regina eventually snaps. "I'll be there soon." She hangs up her phone and leaves the room.

She just wanted ten minutes of peace. Was that too much to ask?

Regina quickly finds Robin, and after explaining the situation, he agrees to watch her interns. He says it's because he, too, has a little boy around Henry's age, and understands, but if you ask her, he still has a little soft spot for her.

~()~

"Momma, I askeded for it back ten times! He never did!" is Henry's greeting.

Regina bends down and runs a hand through his soft curls, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "It's okay, baby." She grabs his hand and his bag and walks to the front desk. There's Karen, her horribly dyed hair in a high ponytail, and wearing a fake smile.

"I want my money," Regina states. She'd cross her arms over her chest if she wasn't holding Henry's hand. "I payed in full for the rest of the month. If you're kicking Henry out, I want my money back."

"I'm afraid that's not possible, Dr. Mills." Karen gives her a sickeningly sweet smile, even opens her mouth to explain why, but Regina gives her a very had glare.

"I'm a doctor," Regina says through clenched teeth. "If you think I don't have the money to hire a very big lawyer, you are wrong. I _will _go to one, get my money back, and ruin the name of your center. Now,_ give me my money back_."

She's close to yelling by the time she's done and Karen looks absolutely terrified. She tells Regina to wait a few seconds before making a quick, but affirmative call. "Okay, the money will be back in your account by the end of the day."

Without another word, she pulls Henry out of the day care. "I'm really sorry, Momma," he says as he straps him in. Before she can respond, he's crying his eyes out and Regina is assuring him it's not his fault.

"It'll be okay, honey. I promise." Her eyes brighten as she thinks of an idea that will cheer him up. "How about we visit Momma's work?"

She was going to have to bring him there anyway. She didn't have a sitter, and it would take time to find another center as good as Sunshine's. But Henry just loves her job. The place fascinates him.

Henry's cries go down to a sniffle and he nods his head. "Okay, Momma."

Regina doesn't like the hospital's daycare. She's sure there's nothing wrong with it, but Sunshine's had monthly drug tests, an evasive background check, and only hired people who had been around children for over five years. It was a great place and there was few kids because of the price.

But for now, until she can find another place, the hospital daycare will surface.

She brings Henry into the hospital on her hip. Henry is grinning madly and pointing at everything. He keeps asking questions and Regina answers the best she can in a way a three year old will understand.

Her interns fine her quickly. She groans internally. She was so close to the daycare. "Dr. Mills, there you are! I was looking all over for you," Blanchard says, seeming out of breath.

"Wait," Emma interrupts. "Who's the kid?"

Sea and Blanchard narrow in on Henry, as if just noticing him.

"He's my son," Regina answers, and Henry waves happily.

"I'm Henry," Henry says, never one to be shy.

"He's why I wasn't here," Regina says quickly. "I had to pick him up from his now ex daycare. Give me a minute, I have to drop him off at the hospital's daycare."

Swan is the only one to wave to Henry as Regina starts to walk away and Henry waves goodbye. When she drops him off, he's rightfully shy and doesn't want to let go of his leg.

"I'm scared, Momma," he says before starting to cry.

Her pager goes off and she sighs. She kneels down and kisses his forehead. "It'll be okay, Henry." She tries to keep her voice calm. If Henry picks up on her beginning irritation, he'll be even more upset. "I'll be back soon and then when we get home, we can have ice cream after dinner."

Henry sniffles and wipes at his eyes with tiny fists. "Promise?'

She nods. "Promise. But now I have to go. I love you."

"Love you, too, Momma." Then he's running off to play and Regina smiles.

Regina heads out, and as she's leaving, she's paged at NICU. She swears and runs. She thinks about all her patients, all of Dr. Jones patients, and can't remember an infant. Then she remembers the baby boy from the car crash, and runs faster.

He's probably too big for all the regular equipment, and he's only a few weeks old anyway. She speeds up and reaches the room, pushing the door open with gusto.

"Speak to me, people!" she demands. She notices Blanchard stands shock still, eyes wide.

"He just stopped breathing!" she says, her voice horse with panicked.

"Well, don't just stand there!" Regina hurriedly gets a tube ready. Dr. Jones, the best neonatal doctor in probably America, hands her the bag.

She tries desperately to get it down the baby's throat, but it's too big. "Damn," Regina curses. "It's too big."

"That's our smallest size," a nurse replies.

Regina tries to think. No way was she letting this baby die. Not this baby, who reminded her too much of her son. "Right. Jones, hand me those tubes." She points at the tubes she means and waits.

"Dr. Mills," Jones says in shock. "Those aren't breathing tubes. I-"

"NOW!"

The tubs are pressed in her hands. She rips off the old tube and attaches the new tube. She manages to get it's down the baby throat without having to incubate. Immediately, his stats start to go up and his lungs explode with air.

Everyone sighs and Regina steps back, wiping the sweat off her brow. "You can all leave," Regina orders, "but I'm going to stay here to check just in case."

Everyone heads out, but Regina stops one in particular. "Blanchard. Wait." Blanchard slowly walks towards her. Regina waits until everyone has left before addressing the issue. "You froze. In the operating room, that can't happen." She says it firmly but gently. This is, after all, a teaching hospital.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Mils. He was just perfectly normal and then . . . he wasn't." Blanchard takes in a deep but wobbly breath.

Regina nods and looks down at the baby who name she still doesn't know. "I know. It's going to happen sometimes. But you have to be ready, okay? This can't happen again."

Blanchard nods and looks down at the floor. "I promise it won't."

(Regina needs to teach Emma to have more confidence. Blanchard needs to be taught not to freak out in situations. She wonders what Sea will need to be taught?)

"Good." Regina nods and sends her to check on the on the dad. Then she finally checks the chart and learns his name: Hector. It's close to Henry.

She tries to calm herself by sticking in her pinky finger, which Hector grabs right away. "Gave me quite the scare, little guy," she whispers.

"Dr. Mills?" There's a tentative knock on the doorway and Regina rolls her eyes: it's a hospital, Swan doesn't have to knock. "I, um, have some news about the dad."

"His legs are being amputated, right?"

Swan nods and steps forward so now that she's right next to Regina. Regina invulnerability breathes in and gets a fresh scent of leather and strawberries. Interesting combination.

"He was the one driving," Swan starts to explain. "Um, we found something interesting in his blood stream."

Regina closes her eyes. Great. A drunk drives who put his own family in danger. "How drunk was he?"

"What?" Dr. Swan hurriedly shakes her head. "No, he's wasn't drunk. He was poisoned. It paralyzed his body. He couldn't hold the wheel or stop the pedals. It's what caused the crash."

Regina takes this in with wide eyes and a nod. She's been here for three years now. Poison isn't new, just uncommon. "Alright, then. Who would want to poison him?"

"I don't know," Swan answered, "but I got curious and checked the girl. She had it too, just in a smaller dose. Not enough to paralyze her, but to make her really sick."

"We need to test the baby now," Regina orders.

Swan nods and gets out a syringe. Regina takes his blood and gives it to Swan to test. "Put a rush on it," Regina demands. "Don't even leave and then come straight back."

Dr. Swan nods and practically runs away.

Regina looks down at Hector. "Who would want to hurt you," she whispers.

Swan is back five minutes later. In the time she's been gone, Regina had got a chair and had sat down, now just gazing at the baby, but she stands when Emma enters. "Well?" she demands.

Emma nods. "He has it in his blood. We'll need to flush it out. He has only a small dosage. Whoever did this wasn't a professional. If they were trying to kill the sister and the baby, they would have used a bigger dose."

"Unless they weren't trying to kill them," Regina supplies. "For all we know, they only wanted to kill the dad."

"Then why give it to the kids?" Swan asks.

Regina shrugs. "Many reasons. Right now we also need to find out if the mother was the one poisoning them. If she doesn't have it in her blood, it's her. If she does though, the person who poisoned them is still out there."

Swan nods. Silence drops around them. The blonde gently pads over to the baby. "Hey there, little guy."

Regina can't help but notice how gentle and soft Swan was with the baby. It impressed her. For all she knew, Emma didn't have kids.

It was like Swan read her mind. "You know, I didn't know you had a kid."

Regina looks down at the baby. Anything to avoid Emma's eyes. "I only knew you for a day." She gets out a small chuckle.

Swan nods. "That's true."

Silence once more settles on them. Dr. Jones pops in suddenly. "I'm just checking on another patient," Jones says before Regina can open her mouth.

(When Regina first started working at the hospital, she could not believe Dr. Jones-Jones, who wore make up and looked like a pirate under his scrubs-was a neonatal surgeon.)

He goes to a baby girl who is one day old and can't breathe on her own. "You know what's mess up?" He turns to them, and Regina's shocked to see not an enrage face, but one of sadness. "This baby's mother did everything right. She didn't drink, didn't smoke, took vitamins . . . She even refused to have sex because she thought it would harm the baby."

Jones chuckle is anything but funny. His eyes harden as he looks back down. "Her husband rubbed her feet every night, applied her stretch marks cream, got her all the food she craved, even talked to the baby in her belly. Yet somehow, this kid is dying. Why's it fair?"

Neither Swan or Regina answer, and Jones shakes his head. He checks her vitals and then picks up the conversation again. "Just now, I delivered a baby to a mother who smoked, never took any vitamins, and even drank. That baby is perfectly healthy. The mother, a drug attack, didn't even want the kid, but she took him anyway. Why does she get to be a mother to a healthy baby boy, while two loving parents are waiting anxiously for news on whether their precious baby girl lives or dies?" Jones looks them both in the eyes. "It's not fair."

~()~

Regina's not very hungry at lunch. She absently swirls her fork around in the cafeteria's version of chicken salad. Her mind is stuck on her case and that innocent baby boy.

"Regina? You okay?"

Regina gives Robin a small smile. "Yeah, I'm fine. I was just rushing this morning and I didn't have time to make myself a proper lunch. Now I'm stuck with this garbage." She gives a fake laugh, and she knows it's not fooling anyone.

But Robin is so sweet. He's honorable and doesn't push the subject, which Regina really appreciates. She remembers why she ever feel in love with him and then pushes those thoughts away. It's not a time for them, really. It's never a time for them. (Maybe when it's two am and she can't sleep and the only thing she can think about is his lips crashing down on hers.)

"So, Roland's birthday is coming up." Robin changes the subject, bless him, and it pulls her out of her mind.

"Oh yeah?" Regina raises an eyebrow and grins. She loves little Roland. She's his honorary aunt. She even has pictures of Roland around her house. Henry and him get along so well, too, so it makes for easy play dates when one of the parents just wants a break. "So what are you planning?"

Robin shrugs and takes a big bite of his cheeseburger. He talks around his bite, which would irk Regina if it was anyone else. "Well, Roland doesn't have a lot of friends. Just Henry, really. Marian and I are thinking maybe just a small party at our house with possibly you and Henry?"

Regina nods, liking that idea. Small parties were the best, especially when it was just your loved ones. "Yeah, that's good. What does he want for his birthday?" She already knew Robin's answer, but it was good to just make sure. She didn't want to get the boy a toy he hated.

"You know him. The kid would be happy with anything."

Regina nods, ideas already going through her mind. "When's the party?"

"His birthday actually falls on a Saturday this year, so we're thinking in two weeks, on the Saturday."

"Sounds great." She gives him a small smile and goes to dump her tray. She feels a little sick. She loves seeing Roland. It's just Marian she can't face. She can't look Marian in the eyes for so many reasons. It hurts her every single time she does. She sees happiness, life, nothing but pure love for her husband, and Regina just feels so guilty.

She gives Robin a smile as she returns and says, "I'm going to go check on the dad and maybe see what the hell is going on." The whole hospital knows about the poison and everyone has been up her butt to get to her case. She's been met with interns that weren't even hers and even a couple residents had tried to mooch the case from her.

Robin nods and swipes his chocolate milk carton, bringing it to his lips. "I'll check on the girl when I'm done."

"Alright. Thank you, Robin."

"No problem, Regina."

On the way to talk to the dad, she catches Sea and pulls her with. She hasn't been alone with Sea yet, and she wants to see what the girl was made of.

"He's still sleeping from the surgery," Sea says once they arrive in the room. She then shakes her head and sighs. "God, I can't even imagine what it would be like to lose both my legs."

Regina silently agrees with her. She doesn't know what she would do, and she doesn't want to think about it. "If he's not up by tomorrow, we'll have to wake him up. Tell me why."

"He might slip into a coma."

"Good. I think Dr. March needs help with his paper work. Go to him."

Sea hesitates, mouth opening, before closing and walking away without a nod. Regina thinks she found Sea's problem. Sea isn't good at being obedient. She needs to know that she is only an intern and can't expect to be doing something exciting every single time.

Well, as least she found out all her interns problems now instead of inside an operating room. She shakes her head slowly and leaves the room. She has other cases she needs to attend to.

~()~

The dad wakes up an hour after Regina had first checked on him. Luckily, Regina isn't there to see his first initial reaction. How would a grown man react to losing his wife, his legs, and finding out both of kids had been severely hurt? Regina doesn't know, but she's glad she won't be there to find out.

When she does get there, he's silent, staring at the wall. His eyes are blank. Regina recognize that look. She has been so numbed before that sometimes, that look was all she ever had. That sad, broken look that said so many things.

"Hello, Mr. Applehache, I am your doctor, Dr. Mills." Regina finally found out the family's last name. It feels personal when you used the last name. It felt like you were close to the patient. That's why Regina honestly preferred not finding out the names. She has to learn them, of course, but she honestly believes she's better off without knowing. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I lost both my legs and found out my wife is dead."

Regina purses her lips and doesn't know what to say to that. Instead she switches the topic. "Did anyone tell you-"

"I know everything," he says. His voice was gruff and horsed.

"So you know about the poison then?"

He sits up quickly, his eyebrows furrowing. "What poison?"

Okay, Regina thinks, so he didn't know everything. Swell. "Mr. Applehache, we found poison in your blood, along with your son and daughter's. We believe it's what caused the crash. It made you lose control of your limbs. I'm very sorry."

"But who would want to poison us?" He seemed so utterly lost.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Applehatche, but I'm not the police. They will be here soon to talk to you, but I'm afraid that's all we can do." Her pager goes off and she get's ready to run. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) it's just Dr. Swan giving her news on Mrs. Applehatche.

_Mrs. Applehatche's clean. She wasn't poisoned-Emma._

(She likes how Swan used her first name instead of her last.)

Regina considers whether to tell Mr. Applehatche or leave it to the police. He hasn't asked, so unless he brings it up, I won't tell him, Regina decides, clipping back on her pager.

"Dr. Mills? Can I see my son and daughter?"

Regina bites her lip before grabbing a wheelchair. She helps him into it carefully. If he's in pain, he doesn't show it. She warns him about his children's states, then gives him a few minutes alone witch each one before rolling him back to the room.

She goes to check on another patient.

~()~

Her shift ended at six today, and she's suddenly so glad for it. The day wasn't bad, or even long. But the case had really made her upset, and now she just wants to grab her son and go. She picks him up at the hospital day care, and he doesn't stop babbling about all the fun he's had. Regina's glad, but she's still not letting him stay there. When she get's home, she'll be looking up day cares like Sunshine's.

She almost groans when she gets inside her house. She completely forgot about the breakfast table. She sets Henry on the ground. He goes to play in his room so Regina can work on cleaning the table and then dinner.

She makes spaghetti because she doesn't feel like making two meals tonight, like she often does because Henry doesn't like "grown up food." Spaghetti is one of the few happy mediums, so she boils the pasta and then starts on making the sauce. She thinks jarred sauce is gross, and honestly, everything homemade is much healthier and it tastes so much better.

While it's cooking, she searches the computer for day cares. She finds a couple near her, but she's really stuck between two: one is an all boy's day care, and the other is unisex. They both are amazing though, maybe even more amazing than Sunshine's.

"Henry?" she calls. "Can you come here?"

Henry ends up picking the unisex one so she goes with it. She calls them and sets up an interview for tomorrow, her day off. (Wednesdays aren't always her day off. She doesn't have a set day off, it just happens to be Wednesday this week.)

After dinner, she gives Henry the promise ice cream, which he gets everywhere, so he has to give him a bath. Then they settle down to watch a movie before Henry's bed time. He picks a superhero one and Regina bets he doesn't understand the plot half the time. But movies make him happy and calm him down, so she goes with it.

He falls asleep in her lap halfway through the movie. Regina relishes in these moments. Henry's so peaceful. He's her sanity. She doesn't know what she would do without him.

"I love you baby," she whispers in his hair, her eyes slowly closing.


	3. Chapter 3

**My tumblr is theimpossiblewolf You should follow me! **

When the alarm goes off at thee in the morning, Emma doesn't quite understand. She's still half asleep-literally. She can still see her old foster mom. She's standing in the doorway, smiling at Emma. Her blonde is done in a bun, her blue dress bright in Emma's bedroom. Bedroom? Emma blinks, and her foster mother is gone. That's when Emma finally realizes the alarm-the fire alarm.

She squeals, actually squeals, and as she stuffs her feet in her bunnies slippers, she's really glad no one would hear that. Then she's out the door in nothing but a tank top and shorts. By law, if any alarm goes off, all attendants must be hurled in the lobby. Emma races down to the lobby, where a bunch of grumbling, tired people wait. It's then Emma spots half her fellow interns, and it's like they spot her at the same exact time.

Emma's brain struggles to take in her co-workers. She blinks. "Mary Margaret?"

"Emma!" It's three am, Mary Margaret has no reason to be so happy. She pushes over to Emma and wraps her in a hug. "I can't believe you're here."

Actually, Emma's not surprise. The apartment is close to the hospital, a ten minute drive tops. It's cheap, in a good neighborhood, and Emma's apartment came with a free washer and dryer, so it's pretty okay to say everyone else's did, too.

"What happened?" Emma asks. She looks over her shoulder for some kind of fireman or something and freezes. Her old foster mom is there. She must be seriously tired. She rubs her eyes and when she opens them, the woman is gone and Emma is left wondering if she dreamed about her.

"I don't know." Mary Margaret shrugs and starts to stay something, when they both hear an all too familiar voice.

"Emma? Mary Margaret?" David is crushing in a hug. Emma can count on her hand the number of times she's been hugged like this. "I didn't know you two lived here." He laughs and runs a hand through his hair. (Seriously, people being happy at THREE AM should be illegal.) "Hell, I didn't know half the hospital lived here!"

All three look around. Emma sees French, Hopper, a few other interns, some nurses, three residents, and one attending.

M&amp;M and him laugh. Emma can't even force a smile. She's so tired. She really just wants to crawl back into bed. Maybe M&amp;M and David don't start work in three hours, but Emma does. She had two more hours of sleep and she's losing them. She could cry.

The super enters the room and everyone explodes with questions. Emma has her own, but she keeps them to herself because everyone else is already asking the questions. She'll get her answers in seconds.

The super holds up one hand, silencing everyone. "There was a fire on the ground apartment. I hate to say this, but I'm said to say the owner of the apartment caught on fire. He's on the way to a hospital now. I just spoke with the firemen outside and it's safe for everyone to go back to their apartments."

Relief watches through Emma. She could go back to sleep, catch a few more hours, and totally just forget this in the morning. She grumbles something about sleep and maybe even spaghetti to Mary Margaret and David, and then trudge back upstairs. She has to push through a blockade of people. She's so tired she trips on a step and almost goes sprawling into the parson behind her. Luckily, she manages to catch herself, all the while cursing herself out.

Emma almost cries when she gets to her apartment. She makes her way through the dark, kicking off her slippers and bumping into tables and chairs. It would hurt more if she was more awake. She doesn't even get under the covers. That would take too much energy. She lies on top, closes her eyes, and allows herself to drift off.

Five minutes later, her pager is going off. Emma curses every single god she can think of, including but not limited to, God, the Greek and Roman gods, and even some Buddhist ones she learned in middle school. She grabs at the damn thing and almost growls. She can't quite read yet through bleary eyes and the darkness of her room, but she can get out two words: burn, and victim. It seems like the world always comes full circle, doesn't it?

She doesn't have time to shower. She barely has time to dress. Instead she tears off her shorts and throws on her scrub pants. She leaves her tank top on and pulls on her scrub shirt. She feels like she's forgetting something, and it's not until she's out the door does she remember: her shoes. She swears really loudly.

By the time she puts on her ugly white tennis shoes, she runs into Mary Margaret in the hallway. They share a smile. "The guy must have gone to Regina. None of the other interns here got paged."

Emma nods and offers her a ride. The other woman accepts and they walk to Emma's bug. It's cold. Emma even uses her white doctor coat she keeps in the car and then cranks up the heat. Lucky her, M&amp;M curls up in Emma's front passenger seat and knocks back ten more minutes of sleep. When they get to the hospital, Emma considers leaving her there, decides she's a better person, and shakes her awake.

Mary Margaret blinks, grumbles something about wanting cereal, and gets out the car. Emma scratches her head. She wants cereal, too. (And, weirdly, she really is craving spaghetti. Like, a lot. She really wants some spaghetti.)

Inside the hospital, it's chaotic, way more than it should be at 3:45 in the morning. Dr. Mills hurries over to them. "Good, you're both here. At the same time?" Her voice is confused, and her words are more like a question than a statement.

Mary Margaret answers. "We live in the same building."

"So does half the hospital," Emma grumbles. She sighs and runs a hand through her hair. "Let me guess, the burn victim is from an apartment fire."

Dr. Mills blinks. "Yeah. How'd you-"

"They lived there, too," Mary Margaret tells her.

Dr. Mills nods slowly. "That must be one apartment. Anyway, the victim has third degrees. He's in his mid sixties. The EMT'S said his name is-"

"Mr. Wood!" Emma and M&amp;M say together. They both knew Mr. Wood. He was a friendly war veteran who told amazing stories about his time. He was a sweet old man. He even helped Emma carry groceries to her apartment, and she's sure he has done the same to everyone else in the building.

"Oh my gosh. What happened?" Mary Margaret looked like she was going to pass out. Maybe Emma should get a chair ready or something.

"Don't know." Dr. Mills shrugs and then bites her lip. "There is something else though."

"What?" Emma questions. "Was is it?"

"Come see for yourself."

Mary Margaret and Emma share a look before Emma shrugs and they both follow Dr. Mills into an ER room. Next to her, Mary Margaret gasps, but Emma can't get out anything at all. Mr. Wood's body wasn't that badly burned. If anything, they were first degree, with maybe one or two spots being second. It was his face that almost gave Emma a heart attack. _It was his face._

One half of his face was horribly burnt, so burnt it was past being recognize. The other half of his face seemed to be holding on by a few stitches of skin. The rest of it hung loosely off his face. Emma could see his veins and blood. His eyeball was intact, but it didn't have any eyelids. The nose was split right in half, and the lips were entirely not there.

"Oh my gosh." Mary Margaret looked like she was going to puke, and Emma was right behind her.

In med school, they said to prepare for the worst. They said, "You are doctors. You're gonna see some horrible things. But it is your job to suck it up and fix what's broken." Maybe this is what they meant. Emma isn't sure if she can just 'suck it up.'

"We're getting him a face transplant," Dr. Mills suddenly says, and it bring Emma out of her mind.

"What?" Emma's eye widen. "Those are extremely rare." They only recently had started to become more frequent, but Emma could count on her hands how many successful ones there were. Not a lot.

"I know that, Dr. Swan." She sends Emma a glare and walks around the bed to get where a sonogram is set up. She glances down at the patient and forces a smile. "Mr. Wood, I'm sorry if my _interns _scared you." She put a lot of emphasis on interns, more than to apologize to Mr. Wood, but instead to perhaps remind Emma that she _was_, in fact, only an intern.

Emma is embarrassed. She knows she shouldn't have said that in front of Mr. Wood, knows she shouldn't have even questioned her resident, but obedience doesn't come easily. Emma has to remind herself to keep herself in line, to make sure she doesn't question Dr. Mills again, or even, God, speak out of term.

She fiddles with her white coat and mumbles an apology. She can't look up; she's too embarrassed. Dr. Mills starts a sonogram to see if his internal organs are okay. Emma doubts there's anything seriously wrong with them. It's his face.

Sea enters the room then. She has giant circles around her eyes and she's wearing boots instead of her tennis shoes. "Sorry," she wheezes as she tries to catch her breath. "I came as fast as I could." Her gaze settles on Emma and Mary Margaret. "But apparently, that wasn't fast enough."

Emma feels like she ought to offer up that her and Mary Margaret only live ten minutes away, seven if they rush it, but she doesn't. Mary Margaret doesn't either and they both just shrug at Ursula.

Sea's eyes widen at Mr. Wood, but she doesn't say anything. (Emma snorts inside her mind. What a bitch.) Dr. Mills finishes the sonogram and looks up at all her interns. It's like she's judging them, taking in everything they have to offer, deciding which one won't mess up the task she's about to assign too badly. (Oh, wait, Emma realizes. That's exactly what she's doing.)

Finally, Dr. Mills sighs and points at Sea. "You, stay with me. Dr. De Vil is coming down to see what needs to be done."

Emma can't say she's not disappointed. First, she knows Mr. Wood, not personally, but enough to worry. Second, she was called in in the late hours of the night-or early hours of the morning-for this. She doubts Regina would call her in to do something that could wait until the morning, but still. This is an interesting, once in a life time case and she really wants to be the main intern on board.

Emma forces herself not to show how upset she is as she's ordered to run lab tests. Mary Margaret is told to check Mr. Wood's medical history and if she finds anything, bring it straight to Dr. Mills.

Dr. Mills quickly takes Mr. Wood's blood, and Emma forces her feet to move. They felt like they were in concrete, or even quick sand. Emma wants to stay, see what Dr Vil has to say. She almost does, too, if it wasn't for Mary Margret giving Emma a sympathetic hand on her shoulder before leaving. Emma forces herself to not even sigh as she goes to run tests.

Her mouth feels dry as she walks into the lab. She's supposed to stay and wait for the results, then bring them straight to her resident, unless stated otherwise. But the woman in front of her makes her feet still as she struggles to hand over the tests.

The woman in front of her has soft brown hair, wavy, but not curvy. Emma can't tell what the exact color of her eyes are, but they're so bright and pretty, and just. . . God.

"Hello." Her voice probably isn't anything special, but Emma swears it's like silk. Not the kind that you are force to wear to fancy advents and the minute you get home you take it off. No. It's the silk you squiggle into after a long day. When you close your eyes and try to breathe, it's the silk that comforts you. It's the silk that rubs against your skin as you crawl into bed. It's the soft silk that softens your head as you lay it down.

"Hi." If Emma was a teenager, she would be a stuttering mess. Instead, she calmly hands over to little box thing that holds the blood tests. "I'm Emma Swan. I'm an intern for Dr. Mills. I need these tested."

The girl nods and accepts them. "Thanks, Emma." She sets the box down to pull on some gloves and wrangles a microscope towards her. "Anything in particular I need to be looking for?"

Emma blushes. She silently curses Dr. Mills for not telling her-or maybe she did and Emma wasn't paying attention. She debates in two seconds what she should say, before shrugging. "Can you test for the basics?"

She's not sure what the basics are. Probably diseases, drugs, and alcohol.

The girl nods again. "Yeah, of course. Are you staying?"

"Yeah, have to."

"I'll make it quick then. I'm Lily, by the way. Lily Page."

Emma almost says her name, but realizes she already gave it. Instead she smiles at Lily. "Nice to meet you."

Lily smiles back.

~()~

When Emma hands off the results back to Dr. Mills, the sun is beginning to shine. Dr. Mills reads them over quickly and sighs. "Nothing out of the ordinary," she mumbles. She looks up straight at Emma. "Why don't you, Sea, and Blanchard take a small break. Maybe breakfast?" She indicates her head to Sea, who is talking quietly with De Vil. She glances up at her name but then shrugs.

"I could go for some food."

"I'll think I'll join you, dear," Dr. De Vil says.

Emma isn't sure how she feels about eating lunch with an attending on only her third day, but before she can event think about it, De Vil and Sea are leaving together. Emma looks curiously at Dr. Mills, who shrugs and then looks at the doorway where Mary Margret just entered.

"He's clean," she says. She rubs at her eyes, where dark circles have began to form. "He got in a car crash a few years ago, but nothing but scrapes."

Dr. Mills blows out air through her cheeks and runs a hand through her hair. "Alright. Blanchard, I will just telling Swan to get something to eat. Go with her."

Before it was a suggestion. Now it's a command. Emma shrugs and M&amp;M silently follows her to the cafeteria. Marry Margret buys a small thing of cereal and a milk carton, but it's too early for Emma to stomach something that big.

She goes to a nearby vending machine and stuffs a crinkled dollar bill through the slot. She presses the number for a small chocolate chip granola bar and brings to to the table. She waits a little bit because her stomach is still a little too asleep to eat something, even as small as a granola bar.

Mary Margret manages half her cereal before chucking the rest away. Emma knows they'll be hungry later, and won't be able to eat for another six hours, but Emma can't find herself to force them to eat more.

"Want to go to an on call room?" M&amp;M proposes.

Emma just nods, her lack of sleep finally catching up to her. They make their way quietly to the closet room and throw themselves on two beds. It's not the good on call room. This one has holey sheets and it smells like beginning of rotting milk. But it's still a bed so Emma makes sure her pager's volume is turned all the way up before she kronks it out.

It's not long enough for any dreams to come, but Emma manages to get glances of spiders and blue dresses and even some neck ties, before they disappear and it's all blank.

It's not her pager that wakes her up but soft, gentle hands. Emma blinks back darkness before opening her eyes. In front of her is David. He's wearing a small smile. Next to him, M&amp;M is rubbing at her eyes and grumbling under her breath about baby boots and blankets. (She got her cereal, will she get those two, too?)

"Hey." David smiles down at her.

Emma sits up and rubs her eyes. "What time is it?"

"It's seven thirty," M&amp;M supplies. "Our pagers never went off."

"I just got here. I came looking for you guys and Nurse Ruby told me she last saw you guys go in here. You never came out."

"How come our pagers never went off?" Emma asks as she swings her legs over the bed and picks up the thing in question up.

"Maybe out of batteries?" M&amp;M suggests.

"Maybe, but-" Emma freezes, eyes going wide. "Mills!"

Mary Margret shrieks, actually shrieks. Then, together, her and Emma race out of the room without another glance at David.

They ask every single person they cross paths with if they knew where their resident was. Meanwhile, Emma's going over apologies in her head. They find Mills on her way to some surgery unrelated to Mr. Wood's case.

The apologies burst through the minute they catch her, but Dr. Mills holds up a hand. She's chuckling, freaking_ chuckling_. "Relax, you two." She smiles at the two out of breath, scared interns. "I didn't page you guys for a reason. We ran into a small problem with Mr. Wood. There really wasn't anything for you to do, so I let you sleep. Sea's still sleeping now."

Relief clouds both Emma and Mary Margret's face. Emma thought she was going to be fired before she even finished out her first week. "Wait." Emma shakes her head. "What was the problem? With Mr. Wood, I mean."

Dr Mills glances down the hall, reminding Emma of her soon surgery. "He doesn't want the transplant." Then she walks down the hall, leaving Emma and Mary Margret alone.

It's silent for a few seconds before Mary Margret speaks up. "She didn't give us any orders. Now what?"

"Go check on another patient." Emma shrugs, already knowing where she'll be heading.

"But . . . we're interns. We aren't allowed unless told to."

"But Dr. Mills didn't give us an order."

Emma sighs. She doesn't have time for goody two shoes. She really wants to get to where she wants to be and she didn't have time to baby her friend, rude as that sounded.

Mary Margret glances around. "She said Sea is still asleep so I'm guessing she still wants to give us a small break. Probably until after her surgery, so that we can get out of her way." She giggles. "I think I'm going to find David and sees if he needs help with anything."

Emma raises an eyebrow and puts on a shit-eating grin. "David, eh?"

Mary Margret blushes. "Shh."

The blonde lefts out a laugh, rolling her eyes and then walking away. She waves over her shoulder and starts to go where she needs to be.

~()~

"Why don't you want the face transplant?" Emma asks Mr. Wood. She grabs a chair and spins it around so that it was faced with his head. She sits down and tries not to stare at the skin that was hanging off his face.

Mr. Wood grunts and opens his eyes. "I . . . I . . ." It was obvious it was hard for him to talk, but if he could refuse a face transplant, he could at least tell Emma why.

"I haven't known you for awhile," Emma says, stuffing her hands through the pockets of her pants. "But you helped carry my bags of groceries up to my apartment, you told me stories of the war . . . Mr. Wood, please."

"N-n-no." He tries to shake his head, but then stops in pain, closing his eyes. "I have . . ." He drawls out his world, trying hard to get all the ones he needed to say without it hurting to much. "Emma . . . Emma, I am . . . me." His breath is sounding harsh, hollow even. (It's too slow and Emma is getting ready to jump if he starts to seize.) "I had this . . . face my w-whole l-life. I will n-not pretend . . . to be something I aaaa-mm n-not."

He's tired, Emma knows. His words makes sense, Emma knows. But she still can't help but press the conversation. She doesn't know why she cares. Is it because she's a doctor? Or maybe because she knew him? Either way, she cares and she can't just let him go.

"Mr. Wood, you'll still be you. The transplant won't totally be the same on you as it was on the person it came from. If you don't get this transplant, you'll be in agony."

Emma's not sure if that was true. She just got out of med school, and why they covered face transplants, they never really gone into detail of what would happen if the person refused to take it. He might be in agony, but he could also live the rest of his life perfectly fine with most of his face missing.

But if he does that, if he decides to not get a new face, Emma knows exactly what will happen. Every time he'll go out, he'll get pointed at. Stared at. Kids would run screaming from him. He would be called a monster.

Emma can't let that happen. "Mr. Wood, take this face. _Please_."

"I . . . think I'd like . . . to sleep n-now."

He closes his eyes, and though Emma knows he's not asleep, not that fast, she leaves. She knows when she's dismissed.

Maybe she could go back to an on call room. Her pager still hasn't gone off, and Emma bets it probably won't until Dr. Mills is out of her surgery. Mary Margret is probably off playing wife with David, and Emma hasn't really connected to any other interns. A few seem nice of course, but she hasn't talked to them. She's not comfortable starting conversations.

The hospital is so big, and Emma feels like a child who just lost their mother in a supermarket. She doesn't know what to do. Interns are to be given instructions, and they are expected to do them. But her resident left her to do whatever, and while that may seem nice to most, it leaves interns confused because now what? What's she suppose to do?

Make a mistake and your resident gets blamed for letting you wander off on your own, and then your resident will never let you be by yourself again.

Feeling much like a child, Emma decides to go check out other residents and attendings, see if anyone needs help. She runs into Dr. Killian on her way, and he turns down her services.

"I haven't had interns in years," he said when she had asked why. "I had my babies, and now my babies are having their own babies. I don't need those babies trying to hammer me down. When you're assigned to me, you can work with me." In a completely joking voice, he says, "Beat it, kiddo."

Emma pretends to pout before laughing and going some where else. She's willing to do paperwork, she's so bored. Maybe this is a test, she thinks. Dr. Mills let her interns out on their own and now she wants to see what they will do.

"Emma! There you are!" A hand wraps around her arm. Lily is out of her breath, her chest rising and falling as she tries to suck in air. "I've been looking for you for the past ten minutes. C'mon, you need to see this."

She's being dragged back to the lab. It's much warmer inside now that it's day time. Lily grabs a microscope and brings it close. "So my shift is almost over and I was about to leave, right? Well, I kept thinking about this one weird thing I saw running your patient's lab. I ignored it at first, but then I just kept thinking and thinking about it." She grabs one of the knobs and spins its, peaks inside the microscope, then twists the knob again. She finally turns to Emma. "I researched some stuff, ran the test again, and, well." She shrugs. "See for yourself."

Lily's so close to her as she leans over and peaks. Her perfume waffles up her nose, and it distracts her for a few seconds, before Emma remembers to look down. She frowns and pulls back. "HIV?" she asks out loud.

"Yeah, and by the look of it, it's the rarest strain," Lily breaths out, eyes lighting up. "Cool, right?" She frowns. "Well, not cool for your patient. Sorry. I have a big mouth, and sometimes I forget I'm speaking out loud."

(Mary Margret didn't say anything about HIV, so he must have been diagnosed just recently.)

"It's fine." Emma's not really interested in Lily at the current moment. She might just have figured out why Mr. Wood doesn't want the transplant. Now she has to bring it to Mills and see what she says. (_So_ like a child lost without their mother.) "Thank you so much."

Lily shrugs, a small rouse coloring her cheeks. "No problem. Just doing my job." She sends Emma a small smile and then leans down and picks up a bag. It's now that Emma notices the pale yellow shirt and blue jeans she's wearing. She probably was just on her way out when she got her euphoria. "See you later?" Her voice is questioning.

Emma smiles, despite her rush wanting to get to Dr. Mills. "Yeah, of course." They leave the lab together, but Lily turns down a hallway, her goal the exit while Emma makes a sharp left, her goal: the operating room.

Nerves knot in her stomach. It's not ideal to wait against a wall until her resident is done in surgery, but what else can Emma do? It's 8 am and Emma's shift doesn't end until 6 pm. (She was supposed to start at 6 am and end 12 hours later. That's not going to happen for obvious reasons.)

She wonders how much longer Dr. Mills surgery is. She's about to even go into the gallery to ask somebody (even though she didn't get permission, so she's technically not allowed) but Emma peaks in one last time and sees her resident in the washroom, scrubbing hard at her hands.

A smile finds its way on Emma's face. Dr. Mills looks different after the surgery. She's glowing, a smile on her face as she laughs at something another doctor says. Her hair is held back in her scrub cap, her cheeks dusted over in sweat,

She's really pretty, Emma thinks.

She doesn't question it though. Mills just looked so much more alive.

That is, until, she exited and saw Emma leaning against a wall.

"I think I have a way to get Mr. Wood to accept the transplant," Emma says.

Dr. Mills raises an eyebrow, trying to hide the shock over her face. "Really?"

"Yeah. Get this. Mr. Wood has HIV." Emma cocks an eyebrow, pride etching over her face.

Except Dr. Mills didn't look so impress. "Well, what does that have to do with anything?"

Emma's face falls. That wasn't quite the reaction she was accepting. "That, um, could be, the reason why . . ." Her voice lowers, shame covering her face. "Maybe that's why he doesn't want it."

Dr. Mills looks very irritated and Emma tries not to flinch. "Let's go talk to him, then Dr. Swan."

He's asleep but Dr. Mills doesn't even hesitate to wake him. He jerks up in surprise, glaring at them the best he could through his face. "What's . . . going on?"

"You have HIV," Regina says, straight to the point.

Mr. Wood doesn't have a reaction. He just says, "So?"

"Is that why you don't want the transplant?" Emma asks. She then cowers as Dr. Mills shoots her a glare.

Mr. Wood doesn't answer and Emma knows it's the exact reason.

"Let me guess," Dr. Mills starts. "You don't think you deserve it."

"I'm just g-going to di-die," Mr. Wood says and Emma opens her mouth to object, but then thinks better of it. "I don't . . . have long. Save it f-for someone who deserves it."

"But you do deserve it!" Emma says, ignoring the glare Dr. Mills sent her way. "Do you want to live the rest of your life terrified to go out in public? Feeling like a monster? Scared of people's reactions? And when you do go out, children will run away screaming, you'll get called mean names, grown adults will point and stare. Do you really want to live the rest of your life like that?"

Her outburst leaves everyone silent. Emma crosses her arms, waiting for an answer.

Mr. Wood just shakes his head. "Give it to someo-o-one who de-s-serves . . . it."

Emma can't just let it go. She can't let him live the rest of his life like this. "Mr. Wood-"

"Dr. Swan let it go." It's Dr. Mills, but she's no longer angry or annoyed. Her voice is sad and her body language shows she's done. "We won't be able to convince him."

"But-"

"Come on, Emma." It's her name that gets her, makes her realize that they truly won't be able to convince him.

She sighs and follows Dr. Mills out of the room. They walk down the corridor together, shoulders slumped.

"I was suppose to have the day off," Dr. Mills suddenly says, stopping when they reach an empty hallway. "But then I got called in. I thought I could just fix him up and go back home. Then I'm told I can't. I get pulled into a kidney transplant surgery because well, I'm here you know? But I didn't come here for that." Mills closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Emma can tell she's upset. "I came here, on my day off, only to be told I can't get my patient a face transplant."

Emma doesn't know what to say, so she says the only thing that comes to mind. "I'm sorry."

Dr. Mills shrugs. "It's part of the job. Being called on my day off isn't the problem. I could always interview Henry's daycare later. But it's the fact I couldn't save my patient. That is what bothers me."

The blonde knows that in Dr. Mills' eyes, she didn't save the patient. She didn't get him the transplant, so the patient wasn't saved, even if he was alive. She can't imagine how she feels.

Once more, she doesn't know what to say so she doesn't say anything.

Dr. Mills doesn't offer up anything else.

She doesn't say anything, either.


	4. Chapter 4

She knows something is wrong when she wakes up. Her alarm clock says its 10:18 am. She sits up in bed and tries to forget about the dream she was having. She doesn't want to remember what she used to have. She doesn't want to remember what happened before Henry was born.

Henry? Where was he? She never got to sleep in on her days off, because her little boy got bored easily and woke her up. (She was actually supposed to work today, but since she was called in on Wednesday and actually ended up just working the whole day, so she got Thursday-today-off instead.)

Regina supposes he was so tired from last night that he wanted to sleep longer. Last night, like every night before her day off, they played with Henry's toys, ate ice cream, and watched a bunch of movies. It was basically a ritual for them, one that Regina loved. It wasn't exactly active, but they _did _stay up a little later than usual to watch a couple more movies, so maybe that's why he's still asleep.

She thinks about making breakfast and then waking him up, but she doesn't know what Henry wants to eat. Instead she decides to shower and get dressed instead. It's a simple outfit: a laxed grey shirt and a black over vest with black dress pants. Then she goes to check on Henry. She chuckles as she finds him waddled deep under a blanket, stuffed toys all around him.

"Baby," Regina says, gently shaking his shoulder. "Time to wake up." He doesn't move and Regina sighs. On the rare occasion he doesn't get himself up, he's a nightmare to wake up. "C'mon, sweetheart. You have to wake up. I'll make pancakes."

That usually gets him moving a little, but he doesn't stir. He doesn't do anything. Regina frowns. She can't hear him breathing. She rips off his blankets and many animals and is met with her boy sprawled out on his back, one arm thrown over his face. "Henry?!" She grabs him in her arms and he doesn't move, doesn't do anything. It's like he's a doll.

Tears swell in Regina's eyes as she takes his pulse: it's weak, but there. In seconds she's clutching his head to her chest, supporting his bottom as she wraps his legs around her. She grabs his coat and runs into the kitchen, grabbing the keys to her car.

She doesn't buckle him in right. In her hurry, she forgets to do the miniature buckles that come with the baby seat, but instead only straps him in with the car's own belt. She doesn't buckle herself in.

Regina's head is spinning and she can't think. She can barely focus on the road as she goes forty miles over the speed limit. Her little boy isn't aright and she doesn't know why. She can't lose her little boy. Her heart is in her throat but she can't. She has to be strong for him.

His pulse is even lower when they get to the hospital. He's paler and he's limp. He feels so heavy as Regina barges through the emergency room doors. "Help me!" she cries. "My son, he-he's not breathing!"

Doctors are on her in seconds. They take Henry away from her, settle him on a bed. Tears flow down Regina's cheeks. She's scared. It's like someone is squeezing her heart, telling her she won't amount to anything, telling her she is worthless, telling her she'll never be a good mother, telling her all of these awful things so that is surrounds her, swallowing her whole.

It makes her knees buckle and she almost falls but an arm wraps around her waist, and a hand presses into her back. She's being pulled away, away from her little boy. She screams and kicks, screaming Henry's name over and over again. She sees Dr. Jones checking his airways, sees other doctors running around near him, but she can't process it. It's not making sense, she can't understand anything. It's like she's trapped inside a giant snow globe, forced to watch everything happen. It's so blurry.

Regina tries to step forward, to get closer to her baby. She needs to save him, to get in there and help him. But she's being pushed back into someone and he's forcing her to walk away. She can only watch helplessly as curtains shut around Henry's bed and then she's being pulled back into an empty on call room.

"It's going to be okay." Robin's words wash over and Regina wants to believe them, wants them to be real. She desperately wishes it to help. She wants it to soothe her, but it doesn't.

"Henry! He-he-" She bursts into tears, her head collapsing in her hands.

"Here." He gently pushed her down on her bed, his hands lying on her shoulders. "Do you need anything?"

Regina looks down at the floor, aware that Robin had said something, but not quite being able to put it together. It's like when she was ten and her mother was yelling at her, usually over something small and unimportant to most. She remembers blocking it out, pretending to listen while imagining something else. Usually she thought of being with her father, him taking her to the beach or a fair when her mother was away.

Now all she can think of is Henry. Henry, lying in her arms. Henry, barely breathing. Henry, her little baby boy who she can't lose.

"We stayed up a little later than usual," she begins, eyes staring past Robin and at the wall. "We had ice cream and-and pizza bites. We watched some Avengers. Henry wanted to watch another movie so I let him. And then he wanted to watch another one. It was way past his bedtime by the time I put him down, but he was _fine. _Henry was fine, just sleepy. And then I-I-" Tears splutter in her eyes but she doesn't try to fight them. She lets them flow down her cheek and onto the floor. "And then I go to wake him up and he's not-not breathing."

"Regina, listen to me." Robin shakes her shoulder just a little bit, so little that she barely even feels it. "Henry will be fine."

"Remember the day I gave birth to him?" Regina asks. She looks up into Robin's eyes, looking at him but not seeing him. "They placed him into my arms and it felt like the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulder."

"I know," Robin whispers, gently moving to sit down next to her. "I walked into the room and you were crying. You were happy though. And I had Roland, but he was just a baby himself. Marian saw Henry and she just started bawling. And you did, too. Then I had two crying women and, as if sensing their mothers were upset, Henry and Roland started crying. I had four crying people on my hand and I didn't know what to do."

Regina snorts, remembering the day. By the time the nurse had walked in, Robin had started crying, too. "And-and then, once everyone left, I called Daniel and he didn't even want to see his own son." She laughs harder, even though it's not funny, even though it literally left a whole in her heart.

Robin shifts awkwardly. "Regina-"

"It's not funny, I know." But she can't stop laughing. She rubs her eyes, smearing even more at the makeup on her face, ruined by tears. "Last night I had _the dream_. You know, the dream where it starts out with Danielle telling me he loves me, telling me we will be together forever. Then it switches next to when I'm telling him I'm pregnant and he's still telling us together forever. Then . . . then . . ." She can't get out the last part. The words are stuck on her tongue but they won't come out. it hurts to even utter them. "Then _it _happens, we fall apart, I give birth a few months later and he doesn't want to meet his son."

Robin closes his eyes, already knowing the rest of the story. He has heard of it many times, been there when she woke up screaming and crying. One night, he remembers, she wouldn't stop crying. He held her, rocked her back and forth the best he could, but she wouldn't stop. When she did, an hour later, she was blank, numb. It was like some else had become Regina, leaving her in autopilot all day.

"And then he dies," Regina finishes the last part.

Robin sighs and sits next to him. "Are you alright?" he asks. He doesn't know what else to ask.

"No. I want my son."

"It's been a few minutes now. Let's go see if he's okay."

~()~

A fever. Henry had a fever. A really bad one, too. It lands him in a room, hooked up to a few machines. An IV runs through his arm as sleeps invades him. Regina listens as Dr Jones explains what has happened.

"Just a bad fever. He's dehydrated so we got him on an IV. Once he wakes up you can take him home, just make sure he drinks a lot." Here he rests a hand on her shoulder. "Breathe, las. Henry will be fine.

Regina thanks him over and over again. She never was close to him, in fact on many occasions she utterly despised the other doctor. But right now he saved her son (even if there really wasn't anything to save him from except for a fever) and so that makes him her favorite person currently.

"Thank you so much." Her words come out a single short breath. Dr. Jones waves her off before leaving. Regina walks over to Henry. She manages to lie down next to him, and, as if sensing she's there, he curls up into her. She rests her hand on the back of his head and gently throws her other arm around him.

"Hey baby," she whispers, her voice raw, tears threatening to spill over. "You scared me so much."

She cradles him into her even more, resting her chin on his head. She starts to rock him back and forth slowing, just swaying. The sun suddenly rises through the window, peaking in, casting a glow through the room. If Regina wanted to, she could make puppets with her hands in the shadows.

Regina starts to sing a lullaby. It's an old one from when Regina was a kid. Her father used to sing it to her before bed. Sometimes, when she was sick, he would sit on her bed next to her, cradle her in his arms, and just sing. She still remembers his hand in her hair, the soothing song washing over her, wishing it was her mother. While she loved her father, she wanted her mother. But her mother would never sing her to sleep.

"Momma?" Henry stirs, his voice drowsy but understandable. He shits a bit and manages to poke his head up so he's looking her in the eyes. "Where are we, Momma?"

"The hospital, baby," Regina answers, still swaying him back and forth. "You were a bit sick."

"All better now?"

She snorts, feeling the urge to cry wash over. "Yeah, all better now."

~()~

An hour later, Henry is in the living room, a bunch of toys scattered around him on the carpet. A movie is playing on the television, but Henry has long abandoned it, instead opting to play with his giant Thor doll. 'Thor' saves a cat from the tree, and Henry 'awards' him by Thor pretending to eat one of his pizza rolls.

Regina smiles down at him, phone pressed to her ear as she puts away the milk jug.

"Okay Dr. Mills," Sally Hotchkins says over the phone, "everything is all set up. If you want to drop by to check out the center then that is no problem at all."

Regina smiles, already knowing she'll be happy with the place. Henry's old daycare didn't offer for Regina to check out the place first. They even seemed a little miffed that she was even calling to check them out instead of just dropping him off one day.

"Actually, Mrs. Hotchkins, it's my day off today, but I'll drop Henry off tomorrow and I'll stay a bit to check it out, if that's okay."

"That is no problem at all! We are glad to welcome Henry into our daycare facility."

Regina thanks her and hangs up. She smiles at her son as she makes her way over. She sits down next to him and he silently hands her some sort of action figure. She smiles and they play together. They pretend to beat down a bad guy but after awhile Henry gets bored.

"Can we go to the park, Momma?" he asks, putting down his toy. He looks up at her with big puppy dog eyes and she wants to say yes.

She hates that she's going to have to say no, but even though Henry is up and playing with his toys, he might still be too weak to go outside. He could get even more sick, and she really doesn't want to push it .

"I'm sorry, baby, but you're still not fully well."

"But I all good now, Momma!"

They always go out on her day off, usually to parks or museums. A wave of guilt hits her as she remembers they were supposed to go out yesterday, but she decided to stay all day. Now they couldn't because he was sick, but it wouldn't matter if they had gone yesterday.

"Oh, I'm sorry baby." She runs a hand through his hair but he shifts away from him, crossing his arms over his chest and pouting. He honestly looks adorable. "Henry, I'm sorry, but I don't want to risk anything."

"But I'm all good!" He stamps a foot down, glaring at her. "I all good, I all good!"

Regina sighs as she stands. She runs a hand through her hair. She can sense a tantrum coming off and she's really not in the mood. Not after the morning they both had. "Henry. Come on, baby-"

"No! Now Momma, I want to go now!"

"Henry." Her voice has become firm, but not loud. "I don't want a tantrum. I said no and-"

"No! No, no, no!" He stomps his foot down harder, eyes swelling with tears. "It's not fair! We always go!"

"I know that, Henry." Regina levels him a hard stare. "But you are sick and it's not good for you to go out yet."

"That's not fair!" Henry screams.

Regina rubs at her temples. She can feel a migraine coming on. "I know it's not fair, Henry. Maybe if you be good today we can do something later this week."

"NO! I wanna go now! Now, now now!"

She doesn't want to deal with it anymore. She knows Henry won't be convinced, that'll he'll continue to pout and throw a tantrum if she doesn't interfere. "Henry, stop it now."

"No, Momma! Not fair!"

"Okay that's it. You know better to act like this-"

"I DON'T CARE!" He throws himself on the ground, screaming and kicking.

Regina groans inside. "Henry, come on." He doesn't stop, and Regina's head start to pounds. "Henry! I mean it, stop." He doesn't. Regina has to pull out the big guns, even though she doesn't like using them. "Henry! If you don't stop now, we'll never go to the park again."

That get's Henry attention. "Really, Momma?"

"Yes."

Slowly, he stands back up. "I don't wanna never not go to the park again!"

"I know, but you can't act like this."

"I sorry, Momma!"

"I know you are baby, but you're still in trouble."

She sends him to the corner for three and a half minutes. He pouts the whole time, but it works. When he's done, he apologizes and cleans up his toys without being told to. He still has uneaten pizza rolls, but he doesn't want them so she throws them away. They go to his bedroom to settle down for a nap. His tantrum must have worn him down, because he falls asleep only two pages into the story.

Regina kisses his forehead and leaves, gently closing the door behind her as to not wake him.

~()~

Friday morning, she and Henry enter The Cookie House. She loves the name. Sunshine's was a cliche and also overdone and overused. The Cookie House actually smelt like cookies mixed with orange juice and apple sauce. Henry's arms are tight but not too tight around her neck. His head is buried in her neck as he peaks at the new place.

Regina checks in with the receptionist, who is nothing but real smiles and bright eyes. It actually sounds true when she says she's happy to have Henry. She tells Regina she can let Henry have as long as he needs to say goodbye and Regina just knows she'll love it here. She looks at Henry and is not quite sure he'll feel the same.

"I don't wanna go, Momma," he whispers, hanging on close.

Regina smiles and gently puts him down, but she kneels so they're eye-to-eye. "Why's that, baby?"

He glances around at the room. There are miniature slides, a flat screen TV currently playing Monsters Inc., and there's a bunch of toys everywhere. It's not even loud. Most kids play quietly or watch the movie. Half the babies are asleep and the others bounce in walkers or play in play-pins.

Henry tugs at his polo. "No friends."

"You'll make friends, sweetheart. Everyone loves you."

Henry still doesn't look convinced. His thumb moves to his mouth, where he sucks on it slowly. "I'm call later?" (It bothers her that he switches from I to I'm, because he knows using 'I' has the same affect as the puppy dog eyes.)

She has already set it up with Sally, but she tells him anyway, "I'm sure if you ask Ms. Sally nicely, she'll let you call me."

He nods slowly. "Okay. Can I watch the movie now, Momma?"

Regina smiles and it practically eats her face. "Yeah, of course." He hugs her tight and she kisses the top of his head. Then he slowly moves to sit next to a blonde kid, a bit bigger than him, maybe six. She smiles warmly at him and scoots over. Henry smiles back and happily sits down. Knowing Henry is in great hands, she leaves.

She left early so Henry can check out the new daycare, but it didn't take as long as she expected, so she's a bit early when she shows up for work. Dr. Jones is the first to notice this and he takes full advantage by asking her to check up on a baby he's too busy to see. And she can't say no, because, well, he saved her son. Besides, she loves babies so she doesn't mind. So she says yes and heads up to check on a 3 pound baby boy.

He's breathing because of machines, his chest barely rising up and down. Regina wonders where the family is. Usually the parents never leave their sick baby's side. Hell, if Henry was a premi, she would have slept at the hospital until she could take him home.

"Oh, hello Dr. Mills." Swan makes her way into the room after hesitating only a second She sends a small smile and makes her way to a different baby boy. "I'm just taking Martin's blood pressure."

Regina raises an eyebrow. "Martin?"

"Oh, um." She scratches her head. "I just noticed his name on the chart." Reminding her of what she's supposed to do, Swan starts to take his blood pressure and other tests.

Regina really hopes Swan knows not to get too attached to patients. If that baby randomly dies-it has happened before-it could really hurt her. She clears her throat and asks Emma when she gets off her shift.

"I get off at three today, but I'm also on call," Dr. Swan responds. She checks off something on a chart then puts it back. "I'm going to go check on another patient."

Regina nods. "When you're done with that, prep Mr. Krosan for surgery."

Emma stills, reluctance edging through her before she gives a sharp nod and leaves without another word. Regina smirks to herself. She loves pissing off interns. Something about it is just so satisfying.

Shaking her head and lightly chuckling, she leaves the nursery. She just happens to past the ER when she's being pulled into a new patient. "Nine year old girl, had one seizure at school and currently now," an EMT says to her.

"Get me diazepam!" she shouts at a couple nurses. "Okay, on the count of three," she instructs two EMTs. "One. Two. Three." They lift her onto the bed, and Regina quickly admits the diazepam. "Alright, what do we know?"

"Not much," answers an EMT. " But the mother is on her way. Oh, there she is now." He points at a tall blonde who just burst through the door. She looks around quickly before spotting Regina and running over to her.

"How's my daughter?" she demands.

"We stopped the seizing for now but it's too early to tell. Has she had a past with seizures?"

The mother shakes her head back and forth in rapid, fast moving movements. "No! She was perfectly fine."

"Okay then, we're going to have to run some tests. Right now, we're going to move her into a room and you need to sign her in."

The mother nods, barely paying attention to the word Regina says. "Thank you."

Regina nods and moves the daughter to a room. As she starts to to take blood, she inquires a bit about the patient. Her name is Marissa, she's nine, and she loves puppies.

"Oh, Swan." As she leaves the room, intent on running the tests herself, she passes by Dr. Swan. "Here. Run these for me."

Swan bites her lip, but accepts the tests. "Sure."

A smirk finds its way on Regina's lips as she walks down the hall. She's starting to get a feeling that Swan doesn't like her that much and honestly, it makes her feel good.

~()~

When Regina gets the tests results back, her guts sinks. Not because there's something wrong with the results, but because there isn't. She'll have to go to the big tests now, which means ordering Swan to start up an MRI. Dr. Black stands next to her, watching as Swan instructs the nine year old to be very still.

"She looks like a good intern," Maleficent notes.

Regina shrugs. "She's okay." Which is true, but Regina also doesn't have a lot of room to judge. She's only known her interns for a few days, and that's no where enough time to make judgment. So far they all made a few mistakes, and they all have a lot of things to learn, but they also have the potential to be good doctors.

Dr. Black laughs and Regina can't help but smile at it. Maleficent's laugh was always pretty. Then she has to force herself not to think of that, because that brings up old, painful memories and she's still not ready to go there.

But Maleficent always had a knack for knowing what Regina was thinking of. She says softly, "My interns were never as good as you. I was always so jealous that Dr. Evans had you."

Regina feels her throat constrict so she forces herself to watch Swan explain how the machine works. "But you had me in your own way," Regina whispers and then immediately wishes she hadn't.

Maleficent gives her a look and then looks away quickly. "Regina, I-"

"I know." Regina cuts her off because she can't go through this again. She knows the whole drill by now. It had hurt when Maleficent said she just wanted to be friends with benefits, didn't want to pursue a romantic relationship. She wanted to continue the sex but Regina couldn't. She couldn't because she had found herself in love with Maleficent. And why shouldn't she? Maleficent was pretty. She was smart. Regina had looked up to her. Maleficent had taught her so many things, and, at the end, that included how to break a heart.

Because as cheesy as that sounded, Maleficent did break Regina's heart. Regina had fallen in love with Maleficent, but Maleficent had only wanted a physical relationship. She just wanted sex. That was okay at first. That was their agreement, after all. But Regina shouldn't have ever said yes. She knew that it had a good percent of ending badly. But god, Regina had craved attention and there Maleficent was, ready and willing to give it to her.

Regina really shouldn't be thinking about this though, because she can feel ice in her stomach as she remembers the way Maleficent had said she didn't love Regina back.

_And then, _Regina thinks,_ I was so upset I went to Robin's house and ended up sleeping with him._

_"_I'm sorry I brought it up," Maleficent says.

"It's okay."

It's not okay, not really. It's just reminds her of all the pain in her past. Her stomach actually starts to hurt. (Past memories start to fly in her head and she wants to stop them. It hurts. It makes her think of what could have happened.

Regina doesn't do it a lot, doesn't think of the "what could have happened" because no matter what, what could have happened won't happen. But now she thinks of a future relationship with Maleficent. She knows they never would have married, even if they perused a romantic relationship. Maleficent just wasn't the marrying type. Despite that though, Regina imagines rough sex but gentle kisses. Maleficent would pretend to be a cold heartless dragon, but she would be so soft and caring with Henry.

All of this starts to make her think of what could have happened with Daniel and even Robin. This is too dangerous. She never lets herself think of this, not even when she's by herself and she can't sleep.

Regina forces herself to look away and to breathe deeply. She can't think of this anymore.

"Hey, so Marissa is all ready." Swan pauses at the door before striding in. "Let's get started."

If she noticed the tension, she obviously didn't mention it. Regina almost sends her a smile but doesn't. (Hell, she could have kissed her.) Instead she looks at the computer as images slowly start to fill the screen.

Maleficent curses as she clicks on an image. Regina sighs as she sees the giant inoperable tumor.

Swan takes a look for herself and frowns. She can read it's a tumor but she's having a hard time distinguishing between operable and inoperable. "I, uh, can't tell if that's operable or not." She flushes red but it's perfectly understandable for an intern.

"Is it big?" Regina asks.

"Um, yes."

"Where's it located?"

Swan's eyes narrow in on the screen, before falling back, her cheeks red. "It's inoperable." It's not a question, but Regina still answers anyway.

Regina nods. "Yes." She turns to Maleficent and thanks the attending for her time. Maleficent gives a sad, "Of course," and leaves. Regina tells Swan to take Marissa to her room and get her mother over.

"Then," Regina instructs, "gently tell the two Marissa's tumor is inoperable."

Swan's mouth opens a little bit and she takes a small stumble back. "Me? You want _me _to tell them?"

Regina nods, hating this lesson the most. "Yes. You're an intern. You're here to learn. You have to learn how to gently let down family and patients." She can see the terror in Swan's eyes and Regina briefly remembers her lesson on this topic. "Be gentle, but not too much. You have to show sympathy, but not to much. This is your first time and I'm not going to lie. Many residents tell interns not too cry, but I think that's not right. Everybody cries their first time telling someone they're going to die, or telling a family member the patient had died. You're going to cry, but try to hold it in as much as you can."

"I don't think I will cry," Dr. Swan argues.

Regina almost snorts. Instead she gives Swan a look. "Just don't get too attached, Dr. Swan. Be careful, be sympathetic, but most importantly, be professional."

Swan stands there for a few moments after Regina has stopped talking, before swiftly turning and leaving the room, her white coat flaring up after her.

Ten minutes later, Regina sees Swan in the cafeteria, trying not to cry as she talks with Blanchard. Regina can't hear the conversation, but she can tell in Emma's body language that she's telling Blanchard about what she just did.

_(I don't think I will cry.)_

Yeah, they all say that.


	5. Chapter 5

**My tumblr is theimpossiblewolf Follow me! Sorry this took so long to get out, I've been so busy! Please review!**

They survived their first week of being an intern and Emma has no clue how the hell they did. In her first week of being in intern, she's been punched, she fainted, she got puked on, got feces thrown at her, peed on by a two year old, and, worst of all, been yelled at by at least three residents and five attendings. Mary Margaret and David, of course, don't get yelled at once. Well, as far as Emma knows.

But the point is, _she made it_. She thought about quitting but yay to her for never going through with it. Mary Margaret, David, and almost all of the other interns headed out to a nearby bar, but Emma turned down the invite.

"Come on Em," Mary Margret whined. "I hear their tacos are amazing!"

Emma laughed but shook her head. "I'm just not up for getting drunk and messy tacos. But you guys have fun," she added as a afterthought, looking at David. She mouthed the words, 'Take care of her' to which he nodded.

So Emma ended up back in her apartment. She paces the floor, her hair falling in her face every now and then. In the right hand is a pen. She squeezes it hard before releasing, leaving indentations in her palm.

She needs to do this. She knows she needs to. She just can't. Emma sighs and roughly throws the pen on the table. It clatters down on the paper, leaving a smudge of ink. Emma growls and crumples up the paper, throwing into the trash bin, which is halfway full of barely written on paper. "I need a break," she says to herself.

In the kitchen, she considers the vodka, but the reason she didn't go to the bar was because she didn't want to get drunk. So she sighs and gets a glass of milk and some M&amp;N's.

She sets back down at the table and glares at the notebook and pen before angrily stuffing a handful of blue M&amp;N's in her mouth. Does she even have to do this? Does she even care?

Emma looks at the pile of opened letters on the table, right near her milk. One flick of the wrist and the letters would be ruined. How many are there, anyway? Emma counts thirteen. Thirteen letters in the past year. And Emma hasn't responded to one. She's trying, though. She just . . . She just doesn't know what to say.

A sharp ring fills the air. For a panicked minute, Emma thinks it's her pager. But no, thankfully it's just her cellphone. She looks at the caller ID and quickly answers it. "Hello?"

"Did you know that Mary Margret is a lightweight?" David asks her as way as greeting.

"No, but I had a feeling." Emma takes a couple sips of her drink, letting David continue.

"Well, we're in the lobby and I know she lives here because we were all there that night. But she's drunk and she keeps babbling on about tacos and the difference between feminism and misandry.

A snort forces its way through her throat. "That's exactly how I thought a drunk Mary Margret would be." She stuffs M&amp;N's in her mouth then stands. Around the food she says, "I'll meet you down in the lobby. She can crash at mine tonight."

"Thank you Emma," Davis says in relief.

Emma smiles. She knows David would have taken her to his apartment, but he's a gentlemen. He's also smart enough to know that Mary Margret would freak out and take things out of portion, probably thinking they slept together, even if she wound up on the couch.

"Be there soon." She hangs up her phone and sets it down on the table, carefully away from the milk. Then she slips on her bunny slippers because she's so not in the mood for pulling on socks and shoes.

On her way out the door she swings her red leather jacket on. She takes the elevator down and meets David in the hallway. He looks maybe a little buzzed, but otherwise alright. He has one arm wrapped around M's waist, another around her upper back.

"Hey," he says, his eye grateful when he spots Emma.

"Hey. How was tonight?"

"Fun. Nurse Maria-the one who is so popular everyone just calls her by her first name- well anyway, she got so drunk and you know that lab girl?"

Emma knows her. She kind of has a school girl crush on her, but no way would she ever admit it. "Yeah, Lily, right?"

"Yeah! She and Nurse Maria got into a bit of a brawl."

"What about?"

"Nurse Maria said something about Lily not being a real doctor."

The amount of anger Emma felt surprised her. Maybe she knew what it was like to be told you're not good enough. Maybe she knew what it was like to be told what she was doing wasn't good enough. Maybe it was just not being good enough. Whatever the cause, it made Emma mad.

"I hoped Lily decked her."

David smiles. "Oh yeah. Right in the nose. Almost broke it. They got into a fight and the bartender kicked both of them out. I don't know what's going to happen, but I don't think any of them will press charges." Emma's laughing by the time he finished. "Then Mary Margret threw up and I got us out of there."

"That story was wild from start to finish," Emma chuckles, moving her hands to gently take Mary Margret from David. Mary Margret sways but Emma manages to get a good drip on her.

"Thanks again, Emma."

"No problem." She sends David a smile and moves towards the elevator. She looks at David.

He points to the stairs. "I'm only on the second floor."

Emma nods and steps into the elevator, jabbing her floor number with her thumb. She waves goodbye and the doors shut, leaving Emma with a very drunk Mary Margret. "Come on," she mutters, tapping her foot anxiously.

It feels like ten years before Emma has M&amp;M on her small pullout couch. If she was a nice friend, she would give her the bed, but Emma wasn't that nice and besides, she liked her bed. And, the pullout couch wasn't that bad. It was comfy, just not comfy enough for Emma.

M&amp;M was sound asleep the minute Emma let go of her. Then again, she was half asleep when Emma forced her to stand while she got the bed ready. Emma stared at the letters and sighed. She quickly finished her snack and the tucked everything away, back into a shoe box that will lie in the very back of her closet. Then she crawled into bed herself and it wasn't long before she was out, too.

~()~

The next morning, she wakes up before Mary Margret. Emma grumbles but manages to be quiet as she bypasses the couch. Her 'guest' is still fast asleep.

Emma wonders what to make for breakfast, wondering if sh even wanted to cook. Today was her day off and she just wanted to relax. With an idea in mind, she leaves the kitchen to get dress. (She hates when she walks into one room, decides she doesn't need anything from it, and has to walk all the way back to where she came from.)

It feels so good to be dressed in skinny jeans, a tank top, and a leather jacket. Better than good-it's heaven. She hasn't realized how much she missed it while she was in scrubs and getting puked on.

"Mary Margret." Emma gives the woman in question a good shake. "Wake up." Mary Margret doesn't wake and Emma uses more force this time as she shakes her again.

"Whaaa?" Mary Margret blinks and rubs her eyes before sitting straight up. "Where am I? Emma? How-"

"Short story is that you got drunk, David dropped you off, and I let you crash on my couch. Now, come on. We're going out to breakfast."

Mary Margret blinks again, taking in the story, before nodding slowly. "I'm in the same clothes as yesterday," she points out.

Emma nods. "What floor are you on?"

"5."

"We're on the eleventh floor now. Let's go down to yours, you can get dressed, and then we can go to breakfast."

M&amp;M is still loopy it seems, but she manages to get out of bed. Emma grabs her keys and phone and locks up her apartment before taking the elevator down to M's floor. It's about 9:30, but if Mary Margret hurries, they can get to Granny's before it gets too crowded.

Fifteen minutes later, they're in Emma's car and Mary Margret is dressed like a school teacher. Go figure.

Emma discovered Granny's when she was apartment hunting. It's only a five minute drive from the apartment (and a ten minute walk) and Emma's been in it once, but the food was amazing. The diner was owned by an elderly lady, but, well, Emma wouldn't call Granny elderly. The lady might be old, but she could kick your ass any day. She was tough and hard, but also nice if you didn't get on her bad side.

(If Emma's honest with herself, that's how she hopes she'll be when she gets old.)

The smell of bacon and coffee rushes up Emma nose when she opens the door. Mary Margret actually sighs in bliss as they take a seat at a booth. (There's a 'Seat Yourself' sign.)

"This place smells so good," Mary Margret says as she picks up a menu.

Emma nods, biting back a laugh. "Yeah, it does."

"How did you find this place?"

Emma picks up a menu herself and shrugs. "I found it while I was apartment hunting. I had just gotten accepted as an intern, but that only gave me a few months to find permanent residence. While I was hunting, I found this diner. I liked it so I figured I'd come back when I had the time."

Mary Margret nods. "I never really had to look for housing. My father kind of has been saving the apartment for me, and when I got accepted, he immediately started going through the process of making it mine."

Emma snorts. "Lucky you."

Then a skinny, but short waitress is asking what they want. Mary Margret orders pancakes with blueberries while Emma packs it on with eggs and bacon. "Oh, and um, can I get sausage with that? And even a fruit bowl?" The waitress gave her a look, but wrote it down. Emma smirked.

Emma was right: the food is amazing. She practically inhales it all, and while Mary Margret is much more neat, she doesn't waste time in hurrying to eat it. "Oh god," she says, wiping her mouth with a napkin. "That was good."

"Told you," Emma says, watching as the waitress puts a check in front of them. Mary Margret reaches for her wallet, but Emma stops her. "My treat." Before the other woman can protest, Emma already is giving her card.

"Emma!" M&amp;M protests, her cheeks a rosy red.

The blonde smiles. "I want to, Mary Marget. Don't worry about it."

Mary Margret shakes her head, but there's a small smile on her face. "Thank you, Emma."

Emma waves it off. "Seriously, it's fine.

They drive back to the apartment building. Mary Margret keeps thanking Emma but Emma keeps waving them off. Seriously, if she didn't want to, she wouldn't have.

Back in her apartment, she gets out the box and sits down at the table. She isn't working today. Today _will _be the day she composes a letter. Now, if she actually sends it? That's a whole other problem.

When lunch rolls around, she hasn't made any progress at all, and it's really starting to catch up with her. She wants to throw everything across the floor, but she's a grown ass woman. She won't. But she should get some lunch. She quickly composes a text to Mary Margret, inviting her out to . . . somewhere, but a few seconds later a text comes in.

'Sorry, Em. Already made plans with David.'

Huh. Emma would so have to get information on that later. Right now she was hungry so she shouldered her jacket and headed out.

She could go back to Granny's, but it's her day off. She wants to explore the surrounding areas. She wants to know what she has in her neighborhood, and what places she can order from at 3 am. She wants to know what cafe she'll fall in love in, and what bar she would eventually hate to love.

It's slightly colder then the morning, making Emma glad she bought a jacket. She passes so many fast food places, which is good, but she doesn't want fast food. She passes a couple of real restaurants, but they're all chain named. She's not satisfied until she finds a small little cafe twenty minutes out. It sucks she had to drive so long to find it, but it's _heavenly. _

It smells like vanilla and it's something out of a movie book, honestly. Emma doesn't quite believe it, but oh well. The walls are white but hung with paintings of the most random things. They range from 400 dollars, swirls of red and blue until they're all combining to make a very picturesque painting, to a green heart colored by a child.

Emma gets a latte (she never was a big fan of them, but hey, When In Rome) and she gets a panini. She gets her food and sits down at one of the small round tables. The panini is really, really good, but Emma still wishes it's a grilled cheese. And fries. She really wants fries.

She just takes a sip of her latte when the door opens and lo and behold, Dr. Regina Mills enters the cafe. Emma almost spits. It's not like she was upset, no, it was more of the fact that Regina Mills was in the cafe. So far of being an intern, Emma never saw her fellow co-workers outside of the hospital (except for that one night of course, but never out in public). To see Regina Mills, classy respected resident Regina Mills, in a little cafe, well, it was weird.

So now what?

Was she pretend she didn't see her? Maybe make a quick exist? Emma glances down. She still has half her panini left. Maybe if she ducked her head just so-

"Dr. Swan."

_Crap._

Emma glances up and gives a fake smile. "Er, hello, Dr. Mills."

Dr. Mills was dressed in her scrubs, but she still looked very pretty. (Emma always wonders how Mills manages to pull it off. After just five minutes in the hospital, Emma probably looks like a raccoon who got run over by a big truck.)

Mills smiles a little more gracefully then Emma did. In one hand she's clutching a small brown bag with the cafe's name stamped on it, and in her other hand she is holding a drink.

"I didn't know you came here," Dr. Mills says.

Emma tries to force herself to be normal. This was her boss, but she was still a normal person. A very pretty normal person who was a very high up resident. "I, um, don't. It's my day off and I decided to venture out."

(Venture out. What was she, 90?)

Dr. Mills nods slowly. "It's my lunch break. I usually eat the hospital food but sometimes I like treating myself."

Emma nods. "Yeah."

An awkward silence rains over them and Emma wants to scream. _Say something, _she tells herself, but can't really think of anything to say.

Finally, Dr. Mills clears her throat. "Well, um, I better be off. I like to eat at the hospital encase something happens."

Emma's not sure if that's the case or not, but before she knows it, Regina Mills is gone and Emma is left alone with her panini and latte.

~()~

The next day, Emma was back to working again. It meant getting up at 4:30 a.m. and getting her ass to the hospital by 5. She was tired and not in the mood for rounds. But this was her job so she did it. She loved being a doctor, except for the days when she didn't.

"Oh, hi, Lily," Emma says, coming to a stop in the lab.

Lily is bent over a microscope, goggles pressed firmly against the eye slots-or whatever they were called. Her tongue is poking out and it was adorable. She glances up when Emma enters and smiles.

"Hello, Emma!" She bounces excitedly over to greet the blonde. "How are you?"

Emma shrugs, willing her cheeks not to flame up. She wasn't a teenager, goddamn it. "I'm great." She holds up the box of blood and urine samples. "Test these for me?"

"For you? I'd do anything."

Lily might have meant it in a jokingly way, but this time Emma couldn't help the heat that flushed her cheeks. It doesn't go unnoticed by Lily, who laughs, winks, and grabs the little box.

"It might take awhile," Lily says as she goes back to her microscope. "I'm currently doing every single test there is on this 43 year old man who swears he's dying." From Lily's tone, it is clear that the man is, in fact, _not_ dying.

"I hate those kind of patients," Emma says, wounding her hands together and wondering is she should stay or not. It's going to take awhile, but it's not like she is needed. Sure, she has other patients, but taking blood and urine samples, well, those can be handled by someone else.

"Do you mind if I stay?" Emma finds herself asking.

Lily glances up. She narrows her eyes, a little confused. "Why?"

"Got nothing else to do." It's not exactly a lie.

Lily grins. "Wanna learn how to test for diseases?"

Emma already knows how to, of course, but it's not like it's her profession. And besides, it wouldn't hurt to get to be a bit better, so she shrugs. "Sure."

~()~

"Dr. Swan."

Emma glances up into the fiery eyes of Dr. Regina Mills and tries not to crawl into a ball on the floor. Mills did not look happy. Great. Now what did she do? "Yes, Dr. Mills?"

"Where were you?"

Emma blinks. "I'm not quite sure-" She was never paged.

"I told you to get me those tests back asap."

Oh. "Well, um, Dr. Page was busy-"

Now Dr. Mills _looks _pissed. "Yes, but I didn't think that would take more than twenty minutes. You were gone for forty."

Crap. Emma is in trouble. She hadn't felt this upset since she was a little kid and a foster mom discovered she broke a vase. (After that, Emma just stopped caring.)

"No one, um, paged me-" Emma tries, but that seems to just set Regina off more.

"Dr. Swan." Dr. Mills sets into Emma's space and Emma gulps, resisting the urge to to press back into the wall of the abandoned hallway. "It does not matter if you are paged or not. You do what I say. I am your resident."

Emma feels her heart pound in her chest. She screwed up, she knows it. "Yes, I understand. I'm sorry."

"Good. You will be in the clinic for the next two days."

Okay, so Emma knows she screwed up. Seriously, she sees the errors of her ways. But clinic duty for two days? Just because she didn't get those tests back exactly when Mills wanted them?

"That's not fair!" she finds herself complaining, then quickly shutting her mouth shut. It's too late.

"Not fair? Swan, I could not care less if it's fair or not! You aren't five. You're a grown ass woman with a job now. Life isn't fair. Suck it up and accept your punishment. Now, stop standing there with your mouth wide open and go check on Mr. Rogers. Now!"

Emma bows her head and hurries off.

~()~

"So I'm totally screwed," Emma finishes glumly, taking a sip of her chocolate milk. She looks up into the faces of David and M&amp;M. David looks sympathetic and M&amp;M looks shocked.

"Emma!" she gasps, dropping her fork on her plate. "You could have been fired!"

"Now, now." David sets a hand on Mary Margret's shoulder, and Emma doesn't miss the blush that erupts on her friend's face. Huh. She'd have to ask about that later. (Along with how their lunch went.) "I'm sure," David continues in that comforting "dad voice" of his, "Dr. Mills wouldn't have fired you, Emma. That's a little bit far."

Both Emma and Mary Margret snort. "Have you met Mills?" Emma asks in all serious, because, yes, she's quite sure Dr. Mills could have fired her. (Okay, she didn't have that power, but she did have the power to bring her to Gold and have him fire her, and Emma doesn't doubt that Mills would do that.)

David shrugs and says, "Emma, I'm sure you're not going to be fired."

"But I am on clinic duty all of tomorrow and the day after that." Emma's very aware how much that came out as a whine. Okay, buy who could blame her? Clinic duty sucked. Seriously, she hated it.

The clinic is just first time parents freaking out over their baby's fever, teens coming in for pregnancy tests, and adults who are too embarrassed to admit they have an STD. Don't even get Emma started on the ones who come in with just the common cold.

"It could have be worse," Mary Margret points out, going back to her chicken salad. "Besides, Emma, you shouldn't have been lounging around anyway."

"I wasn't lounging around," Emma grumbles, taking another sip of her milk. "The tests were going to take awhile and I didn't think I was needed."

David and M&amp;M share a look that doesn't go unnoticed by Emma. "The tests were going to take awhile, huh?" A slow smile stretches Mary Margret's face. "Or was there another reason you wanted to stay?"

Emma wills herself not to blush. "I have no idea what you are talking about," she says blankly, reaching for a dorito from her chips bag.

"Oh?" David grins and leans forward just a bit. "So you staying had nothing to do with the hot doctor that runs the tests?"

Emma blanches, the chip getting caught in her throat. She hadn't told them she was interested in ladies, well it wasn't that big of a secret, she never tried to hide it, but oh it's getting hard to breathe. Still though, she never told anyone that she may or may not like that cute lab doctor. How would they know? Was there a rumor going around? Gosh was it hot in the cafeteria or just her?

"Emma!" cries David just as Emma eyes widen. She tries to talk, tries to cough, but the dorito is wedged in her throat and she's starting to turn a bit blue.

Rationally, she knows she needs to bend over her chair and give herself the Heimlich Maneuver but she's panicking, and all she can think about is that she can't breathe.

David jumps from his chair and runs behind Emma. He settles his hands under her ribs and, with the right motions, dislodges the chip from Emma's throat. It lands in Mary Margret's salad, a fact that would have been funny if Emma hadn't almost died.

"Emma, are you alright?" Mary Margret gasps, thrusting Emma's chocolate milk in her face. "Here, drink this."

Emma coughs quickly and grabs her milk. She finishes it and starts to cough again, allowing the air to go back through her body. "Thank you," she says to David, her voice horse and rough.

"Are you okay?" David asks gently, rubbing soft circles in Emma's back. It feels good.

"Yeah. I'm sorry, you guys just took me by surprise." She rubs at her face and tries not to blush at the few other doctors around the cafeteria staring at her. "I'm all okay!" she says loudly. The doctors give her a look and go back to their food once they're sure she's not gonna pass out.

"Thanks for saving me," Emma says. She says it jokingly, but she means it. David just saved her life.

"No problem." He slowly walks back to his chair and sits down. "We didn't mean to spring that question on you like that. It was a joke. We apologize."

"Yeah, Emma, we're so sorry," Mary Margret agrees.

"It's fine." Emma takes a couple more deep breaths then spills. "You guys may be joking, but you were right. I do kind of like the lab doctor- Dr. Page."

Mary Margret blinks in surprise and David's eyebrows practically shoot into his hairline. "Oh, really? I didn't, um, didn't you were interested in girls. We were just joking."

"I am though." Emma looks at their faces and squares her shoulders, her defenses going up. "Is that a problem?" She asks it calmly, but she's freaking out a little bit.

"No, no!" M&amp;M and David both quickly shake their head. "It's fine," M&amp;M says. "We just weren't expecting it. But Dr. Page huh? She's cute."

Emma's face heats up as she ducks her head a bit. "She's very funny," she says, though she fully agrees with Mary Margret's statement.

David nods slowly. "I only met her twice, but she's very quirky."

"We did hang out while I was waiting for the tests," Emma starts to explain. "I shouldn't have stayed so long, but I like her a bit."

"Ask her out," Mary Margret suggests.

"No!" Emma is quick to shoot down that idea. "A, I don't think she's into girls. I mean, maybe she is, but b, she probably doesn't like me like that. It would make things all awkward and just-no." She shakes her head back and forth, not liking the idea one bit.

"You never know unless you ask," David points out.

M&amp;M opens her mouth, probably to agree, but Emma's pager starts to go off and she jumps out of her chair like a rocket. "Go to go." She grabs her trey and dumps it quickly before running to where Dr. Mills needs her.

Ask Lily Page out? That sounds like a recipe for disaster.

~()~

Emma kicks open her apartment door, quickly kicking off her shoes and dropping the bag of groceries off on the counter. She locks her door before kicking off her jeans and jacket, leaving her in just a tank top and her underwear.

"God, I'm hungry," she says to herself, beginning to put away the few groceries she had bought-milk, a bag of chocolate chip Chips Ahoy cookies, a box of cereal, and a pound of cheese from the deli. It's nine thirteen her clock tells her and her stomach grumbles for something to eat.

Emma quickly makes a cheese and turkey sandwich, pours a glass of milk, and grabs three cookies. She eats at the table then goes to her bedroom. She's tired but she doesn't want to go to bed just yet. She doesn't know why either. She grabs her phone and before she knows it, she's dialing a number she hadn't even thought about in a year.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Elsa. It's me, Emma."

For a few horrible seconds there's nothing but silence and Emma worriedly bites down on her bottom lip. This was a bad idea, she shouldn't have called, especially out of the blue like this. She's about to hang up when-

"Hi, Emma."

Emma takes a deep, not even sure why she called. "How have you been?"

A beat. Then, "I've been good, Emma. Really good. What about yourself?"

Why is she doing this? Why is she calling her old foster sister? They haven't talked in a year, not since their fight.

"I'm okay."

"Why did you call, Emma?" Elsa gets straight to the point. She always did.

To be honest, Emma couldn't think of a reason why she was calling Elsa. She didn't even think about it, but they used to talk all the time. Every night Emma would call and tell her how she was doing in med school. But then the letters came and Elsa and Emma had different opinions and well, they stopped talking. But god, did Emma miss her foster sister. Elsa was one of three foster siblings she still kept in contact with and when they had their fight, Emma was heart broken.

"I miss you." It's not a lie. Emma missed Elsa so much. "It feels so good to hear from you." The words are out of her mouth before she can stop them, but she doesn't care. They're true.

She hears Elsa shift before she replies, "I miss you too, Emma. Thank you for calling."

There's a few silent moments where neither of them talk. There's so much that needs to be said, but Emma knows it's not time yet. Thankfully, Elsa breaks the silence.

"Did you get that internship?"

And just like that, Emma is off like a rocket. She goes on an on about her job at the hospital, even if she only been working there for a week now. It just feels so good to talk about it to someone outside the hospital.

When she's done, Elsa is laughing and Emma's heart clenches because she has missed that sound so much.

"Emma, your job sounds amazing!"

"It _is_ amazing," Emma says. She shifts a little bit in her bed before asking, "What about you? What have you been up to?"

Elsa then tells Emma all about her life and Emma realizes she missed so much. Anna, Elsa's biological little sister (long story, one Emma tries not to think about) is engaged and Elsa has started seeing a boy.

"Anna is talking about kids, too," Elsa says. "Maybe a year after their married."

Emma smiles, thinking of the redhead. "That's great." It really is, too.

They talk a bit more, and before Emma knows it, it's 12 am. Emma has to be up at six. She sighs and tells Elsa she has to go to sleep.

"Alright, but promise me you'll call again. And next time we have to talk, like actually talk."

Emma nods, even though she knows Elsa can't see it. "Alright, I promise." They say goodbye and Emma plugs in her now almost dead phone to charge.

She falls asleep with the image of a thirteen year old girl hugging a little twelve year old girl.


	6. Chapter 6

**I had to fricking look up, "What happens when you get something stuck up your butt," for this chapter. Y'all better review.**

**My tumblr is theimpossibewolf. Follow me. You can ask me anything about the story over there and I'll always answer!**

Roland's birthday comes far too quick for Regina's liking. She stares down at the gift. Henry picked it out. It was his idea to get it, and Regina rolled with it.

Her stomach is a pit of nerves and she's not quite feeling okay. But Henry babbles on and on about the Spiderman movie they watched last night and Regina barely manages to let out little noises to let him know she's still listening, even though she's really not. When they get to Robin's house, Henry is practically bursting with joy and skips up to the door to knock.

A few seconds later, the door opens and there's Marian, smiling down at Henry. "Hello, Henry." She smiles, and of course she looks beautiful. She always was. Her hair tumbles down her shoulders in beautiful curls and her dress is magnificent. It frames her curves perfectly.

Regina thinks about heading back, taking Henry home with a lie on her tongue, but then Roland comes running out the door and gives Henry a big hug. "Henry! You're here!"

"Happy birthday!" Henry says in response, and then the two little boys are running inside the house.

Marian chuckles, her eyes light and shiny. "Thanks for coming," she says.

Regina swallows and nods. "Thanks for inviting us." She tires for her best smile, but it probably comes out wrong, so she shuts that down quickly and follows Marian into her house.

Robin's house is small, but beautiful. It's a common misconception doctors live in mansions. Some do, but some like Robin take what they need. It's three bedrooms, one and a half bathroom, with a beautiful kitchen, living room, and a nice garage. There's a backyard and frontyard and that's it. It's spacious and it's decorated nicely. It's a family home.

She wants to throw up. Robin hugs her and she has no idea how the hell he can be so casual when her insides feels like they're going to come out of her body. He doesn't seem to notice that at all, instead thanking her for the present and dropping it on the table where there's already a small stack of others waiting.

Henry and Roland go up to Roland's room to play and Regina remembers that birthday party's at this age are still mostly for the adults to give them a break. Henry and Roland would probably be in Roland's room all day, watching movies and playing games, only to come down for pizza, cake, and presents. It's perfect.

"So," Marian starts, offering Regina a glass of wine. "We haven't talked in awhile. How have you been?"

_Is that a jab?_ Regina thinks, taking the glass without realizing it. But no, it's not a jab. It's true. Regina and Marian haven't talked in awhile, witch really is a shame, because Regina had all of two friends, and it sucked not talking to her female one.

"I've been good," Regina answers, taking a small sip of the wine. It's expensive and rich, just the way she likes it, and then she feels guilty. Marian knew she liked this type of wine because they were _friends_. "Sorry I've been . . . distant. I've been super busy."

Not a full lie, then.

Marian smiles and waves it away with her hand. "Oh, I know how you doctors get." She laughs, and she's so happy. Regina wants to vomit.

She shouldn't have came. She hated herself. How could she be so easy with Robin but not with Marian? How could see look Robin in the eye, talk to him everyday, be his friend, act like nothing had happen, when she can't even look at Marian without puking?

~()~

_FIVE YEARS AGO_

Regina looks at Maleficent, tears in her eyes but refusing to let them fall. She's chanting in her head not to cry, don't cry. Maleficent has a look of pity on her face as she gazes down at Regina.

"Regina, I-"

"After everything?" Regina asks, a tear escaping down her right cheek witch she harshly wipes away. Her heart feels like it's in her throat and it's clawing to get its way out.

"Oh, Regina. Please don't cry." Maleficent reaches out a hand, to touch her, but Regina flinches back. Maleficent has a hurt look. "Regina . . ."

Regina grabs her jeans and forces them on. At the sound of her name again, she looks up and sees Maleficent with a pitting expression. "No, don't," Regina snaps, looking around for her bra. "This is my fault."

How could she be so stupid? How could she ask for more when she knew-she fucking knew-she wasn't going to get more? How did it get so bad? It was going so good just seconds ago!

"Regina, I thought you knew-"

Regina freezes before roughly yanking on her bra, snapping it in place in seconds. "I'm sorry." I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

"We agreed no strings attached," Maleficent says slowly. She's still in bed, naked, but she's sitting up and clutching the comforter to her chest.

"We did," Regina whispers, but of course she went and messed it up. Of course she had to fall in love. Of course she had to blurt it out like that.

"Regina, I'm sorry, but I can't-"

"I know," Regina snaps. "You can't-won't-let us be more."

"It's not like that-"

"I love you," Regina says, tears falling down her face. Her stomach was spazzing, she didn't feel so well. She felt like she was going to faint or puke. She was finding it hard to breathe. She needed to leave, she needed to-

"I'm sorry," Maleficent whispers, turning her head, refusing to meet Regina's eyes.

Regina leaves in tears.

She should have known better. She was an intern. What was she doing getting mixed up with a resident? What was she doing falling in love with a resident? She does the only thing she can think of, and calls her best friend-Robin, a beginning resident who just finishes his internship when Regina started.

"Hello?"

She's sobbing by the time she gets to her car. She sits in the front seat and barely manages to open the door. "Can I come over?" she asks, and he must hears the crying, the pure desperation in her voice, because he says yes.

He lives in a cheap apartment with his long term girlfriend, Marian, who she actually is really good friends with. Regina met Marian at the hospital. Marian had came by to drop food off for Robin, and got lost. Regina found her and, instead of helping her find Robin, she ended up helping her get lost. (In Regina's defense, it was her second week and she barely knew the place yet.)

Robin found them laughing in a hallway, sitting on a gurney and eating Robin's lunch. Regina became best friends with Marian that day, and after that, Robin and her started to spend more time together, eventually becoming best friends themselves.

After explaining everything to Robin, they sit quietly on his couch. "Wow," Robin says. "Maleficent, huh?"

Regina nods, refusing to meet his eyes.

"Hey." Robin gently grabs Regina's chin and makes her look into his eyes. "You're beautiful. You're smart. You're kind. You are sassy, you're independent, you're awesome, Regina. If she can't see that, she doesn't deserve your love."

Regina stares back. "I'm beautiful, huh?" she whispers, not quite sure why she said it, not quite sure she wants to take it back.

"Yes," Robin whispers back and then they're kissing.

It's hot and rough, not sweet at all. It's gross, too much tongue, not enough lips, but god, Regina wants more, so much more.

They have sex right there on the couch.

They agree to never speak of it again and to most definitely don't tell Marian. They agree that it was a one time thing. They agree to pretend it never happen and carry on as friends. Regina agrees.

A couple weeks Marian finds out she's pregnant, her and Robin get married, Regina meets Daniel, she becomes pregnant, he tells her together forever, they have the falling out, Marian gives birth, Regina gives birth, Daniel doesn't want to meet his son, and then he dies, and it's like Regina and Robin never happened.

~()~

" . . . Regina . . . Regina . . . Regina!"

Regina's head snaps up and she realizes both Marian and Robin were looking at her. She swallows thickly, knowing she had been gone in her head for awhile. "Um, sorry?"

"We were wondering what you wanted on your pizza," Marin says slowly. She looks to Regina's hand, witch still holds the full glass of wine. Regina's knuckles are white from gripping it too hard. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Regina answers, swallowing thickly and taking a large gulp of her wine. "Cheese is fine. I'll just take cheese."

Robin nods slowly and shares a look with Marian, but they don't say anything. Thankfully, the silence was broken by two little pairs of feet running into the kitchen. Henry and Roland were both given juice boxes and then stayed in the living room to watch a movie while they waited for the pizza to arrive.

When the pizza does arrive, Regina chews slowly on a piece. Her head is still elsewhere, but she watches as Roland opens his present, and a small smile makes its way on her face as Roland gasps. "NO WAY!" he says excitedly, looking up at Regina with bright eyes.

In his hands is a Hawkeye doll, AKA a Clint Barton doll.

"How did you find him?" Roland asks excitedly, bouncing on his heels. Henry has a proud grin on his face, smug and happy that Roland liked the gift he picked out.

"Oh, we had to do a lot of browsing online," Regina answers, her smile getting a bit bigger. "I asked Henry what one you didn't have and he told me you had the whole team but Hawkeye and the Black Widow. I was going to get you both, but I couldn't find the Black Widow, anywhere."

"It's okay," Roland nods, still excited. "She's impossible to find. So is Hawkeye!"

"Yeah, I looked everywhere for those two," Robin grumbles. "How the heck did you find him?"

"It wasn't easy," Regina admits. "I had to look everywhere. And I had to get it shipped from some small place in a country I had barely heard of before."

"He's so awesome!" Roland says, eyes still wide. He's in complete awe over the doll.

"Well, it was Henry's idea to get him." Regina smiles and takes a small bite of her pizza, moving it carefully between her cheeks and swallowing before answering. "He told me I should try to get you something Avengers like, since he knows how much you love them."

"I do, a lot! Thank you, Henry!' Roland gives Henry a tight, long hug, witch Henry returns and it's so adorable. Both Regina and Marian get out their phones to take a picture of it, cooing softly.

The little exchange makes Regina feel better, she even manages to get down another slice of pizza and a slice of cake. By the time the little party is over, Henry had three slices of pizza and two slices of cake. He also had a lot of pop, so he's very over the place when they get home.

Regina left with the promise to talk to Marian more, and Regina swears she will, even though it makes her heart practically thump out of her chest. But she's going to try. She wants her best friend back, even if it's going to be a bit awkward.

~()~

The minute she saw her lackeys-er, interns-she knew something was up. They all looked suspicious in the way they were trying to act normal, which meant they were really acting overly normal.

By lunch, something was definitely up, because Sea hadn't rolled her eyes once, Blanchard hadn't hesitated, and Swan didn't question anything all day. She couldn't take it anymore. She needed to know what was up.

"Spill," she demands as they all waited outside for the ambulance to bring the next patent. "Why are you all so . . . close off today?"

"No reason," Blanchard squeaks out, rapidly shaking her head back and forth.

Swan sighs and rolls her eyes. Sea looks very nervous, perhaps . . . paranoid.

"I'm serious." Regina crosses her arms and makes sure to stare at them like they're petulant children. "Tell me right now."

"I don't think you want to know," Swan says, shaking her head back and forth gently.

"To hell I don't! You tell me now."

"Dr. Mills-" Sea begins, but of course Blanchard interrupts.

"Emma and I caught Ursula kissing Dr. De Vil!"

Swan and Sea both groan loudly and look at Blanchard.

"I'm sorry," she says glumly. "I couldn't hold it in anymore!"

"You've only been holding it in for half the day!" protests Sea.

Of all the things, this was not what she expected. Regina purses her lips and stares down all of her interns. (This is bringing back so many memories, she knows where Sea is, she understands.)

"While it's not . . . forbidden to date attendings and residents, I would really object the idea."

("Hi, I'm Dr. Black. Who are you?")

Regina forces her eyes to remain open, not to fall back into lala land. "You should really wait until you are a resident, Sea."

("Regina," Maleficent breathes, tucking a piece of Regina's hair behind her ear. "You're beautiful.")

"Are you saying I'm not allowed to date her?" It's probably taking everything in Sea not to roll her eyes.

("Regina, you're such a good girl." Maleficent's purr sends shivers down Regina's spine.)

"No, of course not." Just that she shouldn't. It's going to end badly, she knows. It's never a happy ending when coworkers get involved. Something is going to happen and everything is going to get all awkward.

"Look," Sea says, before the conversation can get out of hand. "It was just a kiss. They walked in on De Vil giving me a small peck. You know her, it was just a congrats sort of kiss.'

Regina does know De Vil and knows that's totally something she would do, but for some reason, Regina just doesn't quite believe that.

(Maleficent kisses her and Regina's eyes roll in the back of her head.)

"Sea, I don't know what really happened, but it seems like Swan and Blanchard do. Now, it's certainly no business as to who dates who, but if this messes with your work-"

"It won't," Sea interrupts, throwing a disgruntled look at her coworkers.

Regina knows that's not the end, and she'll probably not hear the last of this for awhile, but the ambulance finally reaches them and everyone gets in position.

~()~

Around lunch time, Regina is met with a beautiful long hair women holding up a brown paper bag. "Hello, Marian," Regina says brightly, giving the woman a hug.

"Hi, Regina!" Marian happily returns the hug.

(Regina is trying, really trying, but oh god, the guilt)

"I'm just about to find Robin to give him his lunch. I know, I know, he can buy stuff here," she waves her hand and rolls her eyes with a playful smile, "but honestly, he's going to die one day from all the bad cafeteria food." She laughs. Her laughter sends bells throughout the ER.

"That's probably true," Regina agrees, forcing a laughter of her own. (Marian doesn't deserve this.)

"Would you like to join us?" Marian asks and Regina shakes her head but Marian won't have it. "Come on. I brought pieeeeee." She sings-songs the last word and Regina nods numbly. She knows she'll be going whether she wants to or not.

"Okay."

"Yay!" Marian loops her arms through Regina and they head out to find Robin.

He's talking to another doctor, but glances up when he hears them. He doesn't even flinch at the two of them together, just like yesterday. He smiles and laughs and they head to the cafeteria together.

How, Regina wants to know. How can Robin just sit there next to his wife, eat the pie she brought him, and look at her without blowing up? Maybe he's a good actor because she knows she's having a mental breakdown inside. There are no kids to stop her from panicking. There isn't cake and pizza and presents. Just pie and a salad.

It's not like she and Marian hadn't hung out in the past five years since her and Robin slept together. They have, of course, but it was always with Robin and always with short periods of time. It's just every time Marian had tried to get Regina alone, Regina got massive waves of guilt and couldn't go through with it. She realizes it's been years since they hung out just them.

"So, Regina." Marian swipes a bite of Robin's pie. Robin nudges her shoulder in accusation, but she smirks and sticks out her tongue. She laughs, "Robin told me you got some interns this year. How are they?"

Regina thinks. Swan could be difficult at times, and Sea acts like a teenager with all her eye rolling and backhand comments. Blanchard is just downright annoying. But they're good. So far they hadn't managed to kill anyone or disobey direct orders and from her fellow residents, she knows they could be worst.

"They're good," she answers truthfully. "But we haven't really connected yet, you know?"

She didn't get her nickname 'The Evil Queen' by being overly friendly, but she would still like to get a bit closer to them. She wants to be close enough to actually sit down and talk to Sea about why she shouldn't get mixed up with De Vil, and have Sea actually listen. She wants to let one of her interns scrub in on a surgery. She's getting some back looks because she's the only resident to haven't let them yet.

"Regina, I love you," Marian says, (guilt, guilt, guilt) "but you aren't exactly . . . likeable."

Regina snorts. She can't disagree to that. "I know. But I still would at least like to trust them. I mean, I _do _trust them, but-"

"But you haven't let any of them scrub in yet," Robin interjects, meeting her eyes then quickly looks away.

Regina swallows. "Right." She takes a miniscule bite of her own pie, before swallowing thickly. "I guess I'm just a little worried. If they mess up, it's on me."

"You'll have to let them out eventually," Marian says.

"I know, I know. I was thinking of letting one in on my kidney transplant in two days. It's a simple, basic procedure, and it's not boring like Robin's appendix remover." She says it with a smirk.

"Hey!" Robin pretends to be insulted, but his smile gives it away. "It was a nice, easy, routine procedure and I thought Charlie would love it!" Robin grumbles under his breath. "It's not my fault he passed out! Seriously, who becomes a doctor when they faint at the littlest sign of blood?"

"Lots of people, Robin," Marian responds. "It happens a lot. People go to medical school not knowing they sight of blood freaks them out, and then they go into their first surgery, and faint."

"The world never stops amazing me." Robin shakes his head in fake astonishment, before his pager goes off. He gasps and quickly shovels down the rest of his pie, almost choking. He plants a wet but sweet kiss to Marian's cheek before saying around a mouthful of pie, "Got to go. Love you!"

"Love you, too!" Marian calls to his retreating back.

That leaves Marian and Regina alone to silence. She begs her pager to ring and it doesn't. It would be rude to just get up too, not to mention obvious.

"Well, I better go." Marian stands and collects her purse. "Um. I'll call you, okay?" She gives Regina a small smile and heads out.

Regina lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

~()~

"What seems to be the problem, Mr. Cortez?"

The man was in his mid forties, salt and pepper hair and watery eyes, while his wife stood next to him, arms crossed. "He went in did something stupid," she remarks.

"Ruthie, please!" Mr. Cortez begs. He seems to be grimacing every time he sucked in air and Regina was about to put down 'Breathing Problems' but then she notices how he avoids sitting down, while his wife seems more than comfortable on the spinning chair near the cot.

"Well it was," Ruthie protests. "Just hurry up and tell her, we have to be at Chelsea's birthday party at six!"

Mr. Cortez groans and looks up at Regina. "It seems I have an, um, slight problem." He winces. Regina waits patiently. "You see,-"

"He thought it would be a good idea to stick a cucumber up his-"

"RUTHIE!"

Ruthie shrugs and turns to Regina, who is trying everything to not blush. This is the last time she takes the fricking clinic. "I see," Regina says slowly. "Was it in a condom? Unwatched vegetables can have a number of things on them, so-"

"Look, can you just remove it? Please?" He sounded close to tears.

Breathing through her nose, Regina responds, "First things first: we'll have to get you to X-Ray."

Mr. Cortez pales while Ruthie groans. "Of course! Oh, why do you do this to me, Bob?" Ruthe began hitting him with her purse.

"Like I did this on purpose!" he protests, blocking her blows with his hands.

Regina sighs and gestures for them to follow her. Why does she always get these weird cases? Seriously, every weird thing always happens to her! Maybe she could push this on someone else? If it's not too far up, they might be able to remove it manually and no surgery, but god, Regina didn't want to be the one stuck to remove it.

(She had to remove one once before, and it was probably the worst moment of her doctor life, including that time a drunk old man stumbled his way into the ER and ended up peeing on her.)

She took them to X-Ray room and got the X-Ray technician. "Hello, Dr. Hunchins."

Dr. Hunchins gives her a nod in greeting before turning to the couple. "What seems to be the problem?"

An hour later, Regina is putting on gloves and Swan is throwing her disbelieving looks, like she can't believe she had to be here. Hey, being a doctor can't always be glorious.

"I can't believe this is happening," Emma says.

Ruthie snorts. "You and me both, kid." She turns to her husband, who is looking quite uncomfortable in a gown. "See what you do, Bob? I should have listened to my mother all those years ago!"

"Oh, shut up, Ruthie!" Bob finally snaps. He glares at his wife, something he hadn't done all day. "It's not like anything embarrassing never happened to you!"

"I never stuck a vegetable up my ass, Bob!"

Oh no. Regina doesn't want to hear this. Swan is throwing her a look that screams, 'Help me'.

"Maybe not," Bob seethes, "but I remember that one time that where you thought it would be a grand idea to-"

"WELL, MAYBE I WAS BORED, BOB! We do the same damn thing every time and I'm sick of it. The kids are off to college and it's time to explore! We aren't getting any younger!"

_Take me, _Regina thinks. _Kill me, just kill me now. Please._

"I was bored, too!" Bob protests. "Did you ever think of that?"

"So you shove a-"

"Alright," Regina finally interrupts. When did her life become this? "Dr. Swan and I are now going to remove the object-"

"How long will this take?" Ruthie interrupts. "We have Chelsea's birthday party at 6."

"Is that all you care about?" Bob demands. "Chelsea's birthday party?"

"It's supposed to be the hit of the year," Ruthie snaps. "All the girls from the book club will be there, and so will their fancy rich husbands! It's bad enough I have to bring you!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bob demands, crossing his arms then flinching.

"Oh, I think you know exactly what it means. I bet Johann's husband never stuck a cucumber up his-"

"Well then why don't you go marry him!"

"I just said he was Johann's husband! God, Bob, you never listen to me!"

"Hey!" Swan snaps, causing all eyes to turn to her. "Listen, we have to remove the object now. If we hurry, you can still make it to Chelsea's birthday party and you, Mr. Cortez, can still leave with your dignity, alright? So stop fighting and let's do this."

Stunned, Regina accepts the bottle of vaseline Swan hands her.

~()~

When Regina wakes up sick the next day, she's mad. Really, really mad, because she barely ever gets sick. She doesn't know how, but somehow she woke up with a stuffy nose and clogged ears. She grouches as she contemplates whether to call off or not. Deciding its for the best that she does, she calls work and takes a sick day.

She's feeling pretty bad, but Henry is happy about the sick day. "We can spend the day together, Momma!" he cheers when Regina tells him he doesn't have to go to daycare.

Regina shakes her head sadly. "Sorry, bud, but I'm not feeling to well."

"Don't worry, Momma!" He shows off a missing tooth smile, which is just adorable. "I'll take care of you." He nods so seriously it makes Regina grins.

"Oh, I know you will, baby." She leans to press a kiss to his head, thinks better of it, and pulls back. "How about you watch a movie?"

"Okay, Momma!"

They set up some weird talking cat movie and Regina snuggles into the couch, blatantly wishing there was someone to bring her soup. She really wanted some soup.

"Henry," she rasps, and winces, because it's so deep and scratchy, "do you want to go to Granny's and pick up some lunch?" If she had to get the soup herself, she will.

"Yeah!"

So Regina quickly calls Granny's and orders herself some soup and chicken tenders and fries for Henry. It takes a great effort to get into jeans and a sweater, and then an even greater effort to get Henry buckled into his car seat. By the time Regina makes it to Granny's, she's exhausted but starving.

She carries Henry on her right hip as she enters, the bell going off. She wants to get her food and leave so she can go home and eat and then take a very long nap.

"Regina, you look like crap." Granny doesn't beat around the bush.

Regina snorts. "Thanks." But they both know there's no hard feelings. Granny hands over their food in a white plastic bag, telling Regina to be careful not to spill the soup. She thanks Granny and turns around, almost running straight into Emma Swan.

"Dr. Mills!" Swan squeaks.

Of all the times Swan sees her, it has to be now. She probably looks terrible. She's sick, not wearing any makeup, and she feels like she's going to die. Swan, however, looks good in jeans, a leather jacket, and a cute beanie on her head.

"Hello, Dr. Swan," Regina says, trying for her best normal voice, but it still comes out a little gravely.

"Hello!" Henry interrupts, face alight with joy as he stares at the blonde. "I know you! You work with my momma!"

A quick cough comes from behind all three of them. Regina quickly scrambles over so Emma could place her order, but is surprise when Granny just hands her a plastic bag. She's getting takeout too.

"I do," Swan responds back to Henry. "Henry, right?"

Henry nods, excited the stranger remembered his name. "Yeah! What's your name?"

Regina throws an apologetic look at Swan and is about to apologize, but Emma says, "My name is Emma, Henry."

"Are you a doctor?" Henry looks at Swan with wide eyes, jamming his thumb in his mouth in excitement.

Even though his mother was a doctor, and so was Robin, his honorary uncle, Henry still got amazed over other doctors. It would be cute if it didn't bug Regina so much.

"Well, yes," the blonde answers slowly, not quite sure if she should mention that she's just an intern.

But Henry nods. "Cool."

"Well, Henry, we best be going." Regina desperately wants to eat her soup and then take a long nap. "It was nice seeing you, Emma."

Emma.

It's a weird feel on Regina's tongue.

Emma blushes at the use of her first name. "Goodbye, Dr. Mills. Bye Henry."

"Bye, Emma!" Henry waves goodbye as Regina carries him and their food away.

Emma. It really does suit the blonde. Sweet and cute.

It's not until later, when Regina is back in her own bed, soup eaten and just about to drift into nothingness, does she realize what she thought. _Sweet and cute_. It's too late for Regina to dwell on it though, because she's already asleep.


	7. Chapter 7

At the end of the week, Emma wants nothing more to than just crawl into bed and never wake up. Unfortunately, she can't. She's put on a 48 hour shift, and she's groaning the whole drive to the hospital. She wouldn't be returning to her bed for another 48 hours (and the time it takes her to change and get home). Mary Margret is actually cheerful as she cranks up the music in Emma's car.

"It's seven in the morning," Emma grumbles, yanking her seat belt over her chest. "How can you be so cheerful?"

"It's our first 48 hour shift, Emma!" Mary Margret buckles her own seat belt, looking up at Emma with her big brown eyes.

Mary Margret got so happy over the simplest things. "But Emmm-ma! It's our first rectal exam!" "Daviddd, look! I get to put an IV in!" "Oooh, a stomach pumping! Exciting!" She literally got happy over the fact that they were serving pie (cardboard pie) in the cafeteria. She was such a little kid sometimes. Emma couldn't help but love her. She was a good friend, something she hadn't had in years.

And then there was David, too. David was sweet and understanding. He didn't look like he was ever going to judge her. She could tell him she had murdered someone, and he would take her side. When Emma forgot to bring money for lunch, he had bought her a turkey and cheese sandwich, orange juice, and two cookies. It was really sweet and it reminded her once of the friend who bought her a lunch in middle school, many years back.

"And I hope it's our last," Emma responded, keeping one eye on the road as she lowered the volume on some bad pop song. "Seriously, how do you listen to the radio? It's the same five songs over and over again."

"I don't know, I like it." Mary Margret shrugs and then looks down at her phone. She scrolls down an apparently long text but smiles the whole way. Emma has a feeling she knows who it is.

"So. David, huh?" She raises an eyebrow as the bug stops at a red light. She sneaks a peak at her friend's face and grins: M&amp;M was blushing.

"How did you know?" her friend asks, blushing still but smiling.

Emma snorts and hits the gas when the light changes. "I had a suspicion."

"He just sent me a good morning text. It's very well written."

Emma didn't think Mary Margret was blushing because she liked how well written it is. "That's sweet. So you guys are dating?"

Mary Margret's head snaps around so fast that it would have been comical if Emma wasn't approaching the hospital-her 48 hour shift. Dread filled her stomach as she turned into the parking lot. She didn't want to do this.

"What? No!" Emma threw her a disbelieving glance. "Emma no!" Mary Margret's face was bright red. "We're just friends, I swear!"

"But you want it to be more." She quickly parked the car and turned off the car, spinning in her seat to actually look at Mary Margret. "Right?"

Her friend sighs, and Emma gets the suspicion that this was something Mary Margret struggled with herself. "I don't know. He's really sweet-" She undoes her seat belt and steps out the car. Emma does the same and locks it. "He's also cute."

They start to head for the elevator in the lot that would bring them inside the hospital.

"And?" Emma prompts.

"Oh, Emma. And he's really funny and cool to hang around with, and he tells the best jokes and gives the best advice! I really like him, but I'm worried he doesn't feel the same about me."

"But what if he does?"

Emma really thinks David likes Mary Margret just as much as she likes him. Maybe even a little more. His eyes always brighten up when she's talking. His gaze always seeks her out first in a room. He holds the door open for her (okay, so he does that for everyone, but it's different for Mary Margret) and he always listens to her with rapt attention when she speaks.

It truly is true love.

They get off the elevator and sign in, then start to make their way towards the locker room. "If he does, then you got yourself a boyfriend you really like."

"Or I lose my friend."

Somehow, Emma just didn't see that happening. "You won't lose him, okay? Trust me on this, Mary Margret. I honestly thinks he likes you just as much as you like him."

"I'm not sure-"

"Hey, guys!" David's all dress and ready to go, looking good in his plain grey shirt, doctor jacket, and black slacks. "Are you excited for the 48 hour shift?"

And just like that, the previous conversation is over, and David and Mary Margret both start to talk excitedly over the shift.

~()~

"Good morning, Dr. Mills." Emma hands the older doctor a cup of coffee, just how she knew Mills took it.

Dr. Mills glances down suspiciously at the cup of coffee. Immediately her senses go up. It's a bribe of some sort, she just knows it. "What do you want?" she asks, suspicion clear in her voice.

Emma blanches and takes a small step back. It wasn't a bribe. Okay, so, she totally saw where the other doctor was coming from. It was a bit suspicious Emma decided to get Mills coffee, when she never had before.

So why_ did_ she get her fellow doctor coffee? She hadn't even gotten her friends coffee. "Nothing," Emma responds after a pause or to. "I just wanted to . . ." She's not sure what she wanted. "Just, you know, because."

They seemed to be getting along so far, but not nearly close enough to bring coffee to each other. Emma feels her cheeks heat up and her mouth opens to stammer out a response, but snaps closed when Mills takes the coffee with a weary smile.

"Thank you, Swan," she says slowly.

"Emma," Emma says without really thinking. (She seems to be doing that a lot these days.)

"What?" Mills blinks and gives Emma a look.

Emma clears her throat. "Emma, call me Emma. Please."

"Alright, Emma."

The name sounds foreign to the both of them. Emma smiles hopefully at Mills, but Dr. Mills quickly spins around. "We have a new patient," she says in her crisp, 'No Nonsense' voice. "Sea has sutures and Blanchard-clinic. It's just you. Follow me."

Her resident takes her to a room enclosed in the dark. The blinds are drawn, the TV is off, and the door that leads to the bathroom is closed so as not to be show the bathroom light that never turns off. (Children and the elderly have trouble turning the light on in their rush to go to the bathroom, and end up missing the toilet in the dark. The hospital now always leaves them on.)

There aren't any flowers at all in the room, nor any balloons or bears of any kind of gifts. Lying in the bed is an elderly woman who, after checking her chart, Emma discovers is eighty three years old.

"Velma Washington. Stage four lung cancer," Emma reads straight off the chart.

The woman, though awake, doesn't make any sign that she heard Emma speak, except for the way she frowns and rolls her eyes.

"Huh." Emma's eyebrows furrow as she comes across a page with the letters "DNR" stamped hugely across the top. "Do not resuscitate?"

Her heart felt heavy in her chest and she wasn't sure why. She didn't even know this old lady. But the fact that she wouldn't be able to help, wouldn't be able to save her if she plummeted . . . Well, wasn't that the whole reason she became a doctor? To save people? To help people?

"Listen here, Kid." The old woman speaks for the first time, her voice raspy with old age. "This is my fifth time in this hospital in two months. I'm tired of thinking I'm going to die and then don't! It's tiresome and I just don't have the energy anymore. I'm ready to die. I've been ready to die!"

"I don't get it, then." Emma turns to Mills in confusion. "What are we here for?"

"To aid her, to save her if she's alive, and not yet dead. To monitor her lungs and heart."

Emma could not believe what she was hearing. She learned all about DNR's in med school, but she never thought people would actually want one. Why would some people not want to be saved? Emma didn't understand and it drove her nuts! Not to mention that if she couldn't save this old woman, then why the hell would she be wasting her precious time on her?

~()~

"Hey, stranger!" Dr. Lily Page waves over Emma to her table, where she sis alone and is currently working on eating a salad. "I haven't seen you in forever."

Emma's day so far has been so slow. If it was any indication on how the rest of the 48 hour shift was going to go, then why even bother? But apparently her friends have better luck because none of them were at lunch.

Emma was beginning to feel like a kid on her first day of school with her tray of food in her hand and no where to sit. Luckily, Dr. Page had seen her and waved her over. Emma sent her a thankful smile before sitting down.

"I'm sorry we haven't talked in awhile," Emma begins, but Lily waves her off while she lowers the bottle of juice she was drinking out of.

"No, don't be! I know how busy you guys get." She shrugs with a "What can you do?" smile. "And besides, I'm sure I didn't make matters better by always hiding out in my lab all day."

"Don't you do other things?" Emma asks before she can stop herself.

(She swears, one day she's going to get killed and it'll be because of her big mouth.)

"Oh, sure!" Lily doesn't seem at all offended by Emma's answer. "But I like my lab, really. The other doctors are nice, but I just fell like everyone doesn't really see me as a real doctor, just because I don't know how to properly crack open's someone's skull."

They both laugh at Lily's joke. Lily's laugh is very nice, Emma remembers and smiles some more.

"I get along fine with the technicians and nurses," Lily says after they've stopped laughing, "but yeah, you doctors don't seem to think highly of me. Even some of you interns think I'm below them."

Emma finds that hard to believe. Lily was so pretty and nice and smart. Why would anyone think she isn't a real doctor? "I'm sure there has to be someone other than me who likes you."

Lily shrugs and looks down at her salad. She suddenly looks like a kicked puppy and Emma wants to severely apologize. She never wants Lily to be sad. Never. "Dr. Black seems to like me, but other than her and you? Well, I went out with some doctors before and it didn't turn out well. I don't see myself ever doing it again."

"Would you like to go out with me, then?"

There goes Emma's big mouth again. Why did she do that? Panic consumes her body. "I mean, you don't have to-I just meant because-you said that-"

Somebody shoot her. She really likes Lily. She didn't want to mess up their friendship! Did she just ruin everything? Dear god, what was wrong with her?! Didn't she just tell David and Mary Margret that asking Lily out was a recipe for disaster?!

Lily's face is of surprise. She lowers her fork to her plate. "Sure," she says after a pause. She looks Emma in the eyes and seems to see right through her soul. "I'd like that a lot. Thank you, Emma."

All the breath Emma had been holding leaves her in a fast puff of relief. "Cool! Great!" She didn't ruin anything. She wasn't going to lose Lily. "Um . . . there's this little café I know. I like it a lot. After my 48 hour shift, and after I get some sleep, can I take you there?"

"That would be nice." Lily smiles at Emma, and yeah, her smile was so pretty. "I would like that a lot."

Emma smiles, and she knows she probably looks like a dork. "Cool."

~()~

"YOU WHAT?" Mary Margret looks so startled she almost drops the needle she was about to put through a bag. Her eyes were wide, like she just couldn't believe what she was hearing.

Emma grins cheekily and takes the needle from Mary Margret's shocked hands and inserts it into the IV, looking down at the sleeping kid to make sure she hadn't woken him. "I asked out Dr. Page. And she said yes."

"Oh my gosh, Emma!" Mary Margret's face breaks out into a gigantic smiles and she claps her hands together. Emma shushes her, pointing to the 16 year old who is out on heavy medication. M&amp;M lowers her voice to a whisper. "That's amazing. I didn't even know you liked her!"

"Me either. But I just blurted it out at lunch and she said yes. I'm taking her to this café. I would take her to Granny's, but that seems more of like a second or third date place, you know?"

M&amp;M shakes her head back and forth as they leave the room. "I just can't believe this. Emma, you got a date. Your first one since moving to the city."

"I know!" Emma grins, her tongue peaking out of her mouth a bit. "I can't wait to tell-"

She almost says Elsa, but she stops herself just in time. She has not told Mary Margret or David or anyone about Elsa and Ana or about her past. She supposes she will eventually, considering David and Mary Margret were becoming her best friends quickly. But it just didn't seem right. Not until she sorted out everything. Not until she could write that letter.

Her stomach tightens as she remembers the letter because she has been putting it off for days now. She has talked to Elsa recently but despite what Elsa said, they never really talked about what they needed to. She thinks Elsa might pick up on Emma's hesitance for the conversation and always kept the conversation light and friendly. And besides, she was still putting off that damn letter. She just couldn't do it. And she couldn't tell Mary Margret about anything until she did.

"David," Emma quickly finishes her sentence, so as not to leave an awkward pause.

Mary Margret brightens even more, something Emma didn't think was possible. "Oh, Emma, he will be so happy to hear!"

And he will, too. M wasn't just saying it to be nice. David was a sweetheart. He often reminds her of those sweet young dads on TV, the ones who take their kids to ballet and soccer games, give them ice cream before dinner, let them stay up past their bedtime . . . The kind of dad Emma always wanted but never had.

"You think so?" Emma asks, even though she really already knew.

"Of course, Em." Mary Margret gives Emma's shoulder a small squeeze. "He'll be happy, just like I am." They share a small smile before meeting Dr. Mills.

~()~

Her 48 hour shift ends and Emma wants nothing more than to just go home and sleep for a few hours. So she does. She was exhausted, physically and emotionally. Velma Washington had died, and though Emma wasn't in the room, Dr. Mills filled her in. She has stopped breathing, and there was nothing anyone was allowed to do to save her.

DNR's were such shit.

Besides the DNR's, Emma got stuck on sutures later, and then Mills told her tomorrow she was to be at the clinic.

She couldn't wait until she finished her internship.

Emma kicks off her clothes and chucks them on the floor, something she hadn't done since college. "I'll put them in the laundry tomorrow," she mumbles to herself, already practically asleep on her feet.

It doesn't take her long to pass out. She dreams of the past, of Elsa and Ana, of her old foster moms and dads. She dreams of letters and long conversations, of friends and dates, until it's the next day and she can lift herself out of bed.

The only good thing about working a 48 hour shift are the days the hospital gives you off afterwards. Emma sleeps in until eleven a.m. and eats a big homemade breakfast of boxed french toast sticks and two toaster stroodles. She manages to swallow down a glass of orange juice before she remembers she has a date with Lily.

The huge grin on her face reminds her of a little kid on Christmas. She whips out her phone and texts the number Lily had given her. 'What time today'

It's not until five minutes later does Lily respond. 'I get off at 5 :)'

'I can pick u up at the hos. at 6?'

'Sounds cool! :P'

Emma laughs at Lily's last smiley face before glancing at the time. She definitely has time before her date. She decides to call Elsa. Her old foster sister picks up on the third ring. "Hi, Emma!"

Chuckling at Elsa's enthusiastic voice, she tells Elsa, "So guess what I have?"

"An STD?"

"No." Emma frowns. "A date, Elsa."

"Wait, really?"

"Yep!" Emma grins and goes to sit down on her couch, letting her feet rest on the coffee table because now that she was an adult with her own place she can do that. It was nice. "She's another doctor. Her name is Lily."

"I'm happy for you, Emma. I'm really am. You deserve someone after everything that happened."

She shifts uncomfortably on the couch. Maybe it's time Emma and Elsa finally talked. She's been putting it off for a long time now, and she'd like to talk to Ana and see the two sisters. "Elsa? How's Ingrid?"

Emma's met with a rush of surprised air in her ear. "Are you ready to talk?" Elsa asks gently, not unkindly.

Despite Elsa not being able to see her, Emma nods. "Yeah . . . Yeah, Elsa I think I am."

There's a silence on the other end. "Okay," Elsa says eventually. "Ingrid is okay."

"Are you and Ana still seeing her?"

"Yes, whenever we can. She's doing good, really good. Did she tell you in the letters everything that happened?"

"Yes. She said she was doing better and she would like to talk. But I can't Elsa. I'm really sorry, but I can't."

"I know, Emma," Elsa retorts. "That's why we fought the last time, remember?"

"I do, but I miss you Elsa. I know Ana won't see me until I forgive Ingrid, but I'm not ready."

"Ana misses you, Emma. She really does-"

"I miss her, too." Emma crawls up in a ball on her couch, resting her head against the back cushion and closing her eyes. "I want to write back to her at least, though."

Elsa seems surprised. "You do?"

"Yeah." And Emma really does, too. But like she said, she doesn't know how. "I don't know what to write. I don't know what to say."

"I can help you, Emma. Let me help you, Em."

Emma's stomach was starting to hurt in nerves, because she's been so terrified of those letters. She's been terrified for a long time now, and she's realizing it's time to stop.

"Okay," she breathes into the phone. "Okay."

~()~

So Emma finds herself two hours later drinking chocolate milk at her kitchen table. There's two cookies left uneaten out of the four, and Emma really wants nothing more to gobble them up along with more, but she can't. She has her date with Lily soon and she's not one of those girls who eat before or after a date so they don't look like a pig or something during the date.

(Which Emma finds really stupid, because if you're going on a date to a restaurant or a cafe or something like that, then you're going to eat. It makes no sense to not eat.)

Her letter is finished and ready to be sent. Before she can stop herself, Emma is pushing on shoes and putting on her leather jacket. (She still has to shower and put on real clothes for her date, but for now, her shorts and tank will do.)

She exists apartment and walks to the elevator. She'll turn around if she goes on the stairs.

In the lobby is a small little door that leads to the mail room, which hold's the mail. Emma enters the room and heads for the apartment's own personal blue mail box stand thing.

Emma stares down at the letter she now has memorized. Before she can lose her nerves, she opens the box and shoots the letter down.

_Dear Ingrid, _

_It's Emma. I really don't know what to say, but I figured it's time I responded. _

_I'm not ready to see you yet, not after everything. God, I'm still so upset with you. You just can't come back into my life after not hearing from you in so long. Ana and Elsa forgave you so easily, but I just couldn't. It drove a wedge between us, as you probably know. We stopped talking.  
_

_Recently, I've started talking with Elsa again, and she helped me write this letter. I've been meaning to write this letter for so long, and I'm so relieved that I finally did. _

_You hurt me. You took Ana, Elsa, and me in at 12 and 13 years old. We all had such crappy homes before then. My parents left me for dead, Ana's and Elsa's parents died-we didn't have a family. We didn't even know each other when you took us in, but you made us a family. _

_All three of us didn't trust you at first. You picked me up the current orphanage I was at and you took me to your house. On the way there, you explained to me that the day before you had picked up two other little girls. When I saw them, I knew they were just like me. They were given homes and then returned. We all knew what usually happened. We didn't know why you picked to have three foster children, but you did. We bonded over the fact that we didn't trust you.  
_

_We thought you would be just like everyone else. _

_But you weren't, Ingrid. For three years, you became the best foster mom we ever had. We became a family. I remember the time you took us all to Disney World. I remember that time you took us to the beach, to the zoo, to the aquarium. I remember the time you flew me across the country to see the only foster brother I kept in touch with. You made us into a family.  
_

_When Elsa and I were seventeen, and Ana was sixteen, you dropped us. You had been acting weird for a three months before the social worked had came to get us and our belongings. We had so many things but we were only allowed to take clothes, but those were things you got us.  
_

_We knew, you know. You stopped talking to us and when you did, it was only in short, clipped conversations. You stopped going to our school functions, stopped doing things with us.  
_

_You left us, and it hurt so much. Do you know how much it hurt to go back to the orphanage? You were our family, you promised you would always be there for us. Another broken promise for us.  
_

_But we carried on. We stayed in touch, even after we left. I got on with my life. Went to college, studied to become a doctor. And then you wrote me that first letter and I was so angry. _

_You can't just come back into our life like that! But I understand. I got that letter and you explained how you found out you got cancer, how you thought you were going to die. How you didn't want us to watch you die, how you thought it would be easier on everyone to leave us. I understand that, but it wasn't easier.  
_

_When that social worker came for us, my heart stopped. You didn't even tell us. On the day she came, you still didn't tell us. You didn't talk at all as the social worker gathered us in her car. _

_You said in your first letter how you didn't expect to live and were shocked when you went into remission. You needed to figure things out because you honestly thought you were going to die. After a while, you found us again. You wrote to us, explaining everything. I was angry. How dare you! I had tried so hard to move on, and then you writ us.  
_

_Ana forgave you that first letter, Elsa the third. I didn't though, and it made us fight. Ana and Elsa thought I should forgive you. They started seeing you again but I wasn't ready. I'm still not ready. I'm scared. I realized that now. I was scared and I'm still scared. But I'm ready now. It's time to let go. I started talking to Elsa again, and she helped me write this letter.  
_

_I'll write to you. But I'm not ready to see you. Maybe in the future we can. For now, I'm not ready. _

_I'll write to you soon again. _

_ Sincerely, Emma. _

Emma glances at the time on her phone. She has to go get ready for her date with Lily.

~()~

"You look nice," Lily greets Emma, smiling hugely as she took in the blonde.

Emma had decided to wear something nice but comfortable. It was only a cafe date, after all, but she still wanted to look nice. She dressed in her nicest pair of pants, her converses instead of her boots, and a nice top. She curled her hair perfectly and even swiped some eyeliner on.

"Thank you," Emma says sincerely back. "You do, too."

Lily did look nice in a skirt and pretty blouse. Her hair was the same as ever, and she was still wearing her doctor coat, considering Emma was picking her up from the hospital.

Lily grins. "Thank you."

They walk to Emma's car, and Emma holds the door open for Lily and then closes it for her. Her stomach feels a little heavy as she drives the car, but she manages to make light conversation with her date on the way to the cafe.

The cafe is a little crowd but they still manage to snag a table. Emma buys the drinks and the food they order, because she did ask Lily out. Then they sat down at their little booth pushed against the window, giving the dazzling view of the city.

"Wow," Lily breathes, mocha halfway to her mouth. Her eyes, wide and beautifully brown, sweep over the city line and lights. "It's so beautiful. I really need to get out more."

Emma grins and takes a small bite of the sandwich she ordered. "It's beautiful, right? You should see it in the daytime. It's not more or less beautiful, but it's different."

"Different is good," Lily says, finally tearing her eyes away from the window, and they share a smile.

Their date takes off after that. They talk for an hour and a half about their lives, and just generally getting to know one another. Emma learns that Lily was adopted by a couple who saw her as a last resort.

"They were okay parents," Lily mumbled, looking at the table. "Just not very . . . into me, you know?"

Emma did know.

She didn't tell Lily much about her life, but she did tell her she was in foster care and been bounced around a lot.

It's not that she didn't trust Lily. It was just the fact that it was only a first date, and there would be plenty of times in the future to talk about such things. Perhaps over a marathon of Doctor Who with a bottle of vodka.

Emma walks Lily to her house (an actual house-small but a house none the less) and she doesn't really feel nervous like she should. She should feel nervous about whether to kiss her date or not, but she finds that she doesn't really care. Not in the rude way and she would love to kiss Lily, but she could live without kissing her, too.

But she does kiss her. It's short and sweet, just a little bit longer than a peck. She could see herself doing it more often.

"Good night, Emma," Lily says once they pull away.

"Good night, Lily."

Emma leaves a few seconds later to get back to her apartment.

"What a day," Emma mumbles once she collapses against her pillows.


	8. Chapter 8

**My tumblr is theimpossiblewolf I take prompts and such. Please review. Let me know what you think, what's going to happen, how you reacted to this chapter, whatever, just anything.**

**Also, mild cursing in this chapter. Enjoy :)  
**

When Regina hears her intern went on a date with the technician, she isn't happy. It's bad enough Sea and De Vil are still, "dating," but now she has another intern to worry about? Why do the doctors keep hitting on _her_ interns? The other interns seem to be doing just fine dating within the intern group (though there were some suspicious rumors about a Belle French hooking up with Gold) so why couldn't hers do that, too? Regina knew first hand was it was like to date outside the interns and it ended badly.

She was going to make sure nobody messed with her interns. (Except for her, of course.) When Regina sees Swan with that Page girl, she isn't technically jealous, if jealous meant in a romantic way. She wasn't even jealous in a platonic friend way. She was jealous in a medical way, if that made sense.

She puts it this way: Emma is going to be so focused on Page, she'll drop in her internship. Not on purpose. She won't even know she'll be doing it. But she'll start to question whatever Regina says, she'll be late for many things, and when she gets in a fight with Page, she'll be moody and upset, and she'll let it affect her work.

So far, Sea hasn't really done any of those things. Regina doesn't do much for gossip (unlike her mother, who seemed to know everything about everyone) but from the grapevine, apparently they aren't "dating." They are occasionally hooking up, not exclusive, and certainly don't hang out or do anything that isn't sex or work. And while Regina would wish none of her interns would date residents or attendings, what Sea and De Vil are doing isn't that bad. (Until someone falls in love, anyway.)

But from what she is hearing and observing over the next two weeks, she is certain Emma and Page are going for a full relationship. And like she said, she isn't jealous. She's just really hoping Emma doesn't let it affect her work.

One day she finds herself in the cafeteria, eating with De Vil and Black. She doesn't normally sit with them, but Robin is in hour six of a twelve hour surgery. She doesn't mind eating with the girls as much as the thought. De Vil could come off as cruel sometimes, but she's straight up and will give you her honest opinion. Black and her don't talk much, and if they do it's civil, but at least it isn't awkward. Besides, it's better to sit with them then some random co-workers she only ever spoke to in surgery or in consultations.

So far they managed to keep the conversation light. Regina swirls a spoon into a yogurt cup, and tries not to grimace when her spoon comes up in chunky slime. She pushes the cup away and goes for her tuna sandwich instead. It's not bad, but she really needs to remember to start packing a lunch. She has time in the morning to pack one for her son, but not for her?

"So Regina," De Vil starts, curling her tongue to the roof of her mouth, her voice low and saucy, "I heard yet another one of your inters is infatuated with a higher up doctor?"

She looks pointedly to where Emma is sitting at her usual table with Blanchard and Charming, but Page now joins them, sitting next to Emma and making conversation with everyone. Regina tries not to bristle.

"Page is a low level resident, a technician. You are an attending."

Regina doesn't mean for it to come out as a snarl, but it does. Maleficent raises an eyebrow and smirks, sharing a glance with De Vil.

"Ursula and I are merrily allowing ourselves moments of pleasure together, sweetie. If I am correct, I believe Swan and Page are taking a turn on the dating sides of things." De Vil smirks and delicately wipes her mouth on a napkin, careful of her bright red lipstick.

Black snickers into her cup of coffee. "Cruella, darling, I think you hit a nerve." She points to Regina, who is trying to take deep breaths through her nose.

"Why my interns?" Regina demands, roughly dipping a carrot in some ranch dressing. "I mean, one, fine, but two?"

"Have you talked to her, yet?" Maleficent asks, curiously looking up at Regina with her pretty eyes. (Bad, Regina. Stop.)

"I will." Regina looks over to other table just in time to see Page give Swan a quick kiss before getting up. The carrot Regina was about to dip is suddenly crushed in her right hand.

Thankfully, it goes unnoticed by De Vil and Black, but it does not go unnoticed by herself. She's not jealous. She's not.

~()~

Over another two weeks, Regina watches as the relationship between Swan and Page prevails. It's annoying, to say the least. Swan's work isn't affected much, but Regina watches everyday as they slowly start to become something more. They don't even have PDA except for small kisses, but it's the way Emma leaves the hospital later, waiting for Page. Little touches. Soft smiles. Goofy jokes.

Emma always volunteers to run tests. No, Regina is not jealous, thank you very much.

Regina has a surgery and she decides to bring in Blanchard. She would have liked to bring in Emma, but Emma was already brought in once and Blanchard hasn't. (Emma's first surgery was a simple kidney transplant, clean through in through.)

If Regina is grumpy that Emma doesn't seem to care that much, then she tries not to show it. The surgery is simple enough, and she's happy enough with how Blanchard was.

Regina carefully scrubs out, congratulates Blanchard, and leaves to clock out for the day. She quickly changes in the locker room and then leaves to pick up Henry from daycare.

"Momma?" Henry asks as she's buckling him into his car seat. His tongue is pocked out in concentration, watching as his mother adjusted his straps.

Regina puffs out air, snapping a buckle over his right shoulder. "Yes, baby?" Usually it doesn't take long to get Henry settled in the car, but she's super exhausted after a round of surgery, and then two extra rounds of her yelling at different interns.

"Can we got to Granny's for dinner?"

Regina and Henry used to go to Granny's all the time, but stopped when Regina got promoted to a hire up resident. Regina hesitates. She's exhausted, too exhausted to cook something nice and healthy for dinner.

"Please, Momma?" Henry gives Regina his best puppy dog eyes, even going as far as to stick out his bottom lip.

Oh, what the hell, Regina decides. They haven't gone in awhile, anyway, and she could go for some fries. She nods and Henry cheers, causing her to chuckle sweetly.

"Let's go, sweetie."

~()~

She has missed Granny's, though she would never admit it. The smell of greasy food waffles in the air when they walk in and Regina's nose crinkles up. Granny stood behind the counter, ringing up some take out for a rather large man. She looked up when the bell rang and flashed a large grin. "Regina! Henry! Nice to see you!"

"Hi, Granny!" Henry waves from Regina right hip, little tongue poking out as he smiled.

"Take a seat! Somebody will be with you in a minute!" Granny gestures widely around, indicating they could sit anywhere.

They pick their old favorite booth, the one in the far back. A waitress brings them a booster seat for Henry, who happily sits down without a fuss. He used to hate the thing, claiming he was a big boy, but Regina suspects he's just happy to be back.

The waitress, who looks about sixteen, has dyed pink hair, a nose ring, and a lip ring. She smiles pleasantly at them, and Regina thanks every god out there that Henry doesn't mention any of her aspects. (She's also a little proud. She raised him right.)

"I want a chocolate milk and a cheese burger with extra ketchup and no pickles with a side of fries and, um, grapes, and oh! A side of mac n cheese and um, cheese sticks-"

"Woah, woah, Henry, please." Regina laughs openly at the poor waitress face, desperately trying to write everything the toddler said. In a firm voice, she tells him, "You can have two sides, Henry."

He looks like he wants to argue, but with a quick glance up at his mother's face, he says solemnly, "I guess fries and mac n cheese, then." He adds 'please' as an after thought.

"You got it, bud." The waitress crosses many things off before turning to Regina, eyebrow raised.

Regina orders her old usual chicken salad with a side of soup and a cup of coffee. The waitress takes it all before leaving and giving the order to Granny.

"Thanks Momma," Henry says excitedly.

"You're welcome, dear. How was daycare?"

He launches into the story of his friend, Peter, whose kitten had accidentally snuck into his backpack without him knowing, and because both of his parents worked, nobody could come and pick up the cat.

"We got to play with her all day!" Henry uses wild hand gestures, eye wide and mouth hanging open. "Momma, she's so cute! She had a little black spot on her nose!"

She prays Henry doesn't ask for one, or even a dog (she shudders at the thought) but he just looks up at her with bright brown eyes. "My birthday is coming up, Momma."

"How could I forget?" Regina drawls slowly, a playful smile on her lips.

"I'll be four!"

"Realllly?"

Henry nods his head excitedly, then glances up as the waitress places their food in front of them. He immediately pops a fry in his mouth, uttering a thankful around the food. He quickly swallows. "Don't you think a kitty would be the perfect gift?"

Regina pauses in pouring the ranch over her salad. He just had to ask, didn't he?

He hadn't ask about a pet before and Regina was praying it would stay that way. Apparently not.

"Henry . . ." She shifts in her seat, wondering how she's going to tell him 'No.'

It turns out she doesn't have to.

"Hey, Momma, look! It's the blonde lady!" He points to the door where Swan is walking into the diner-with Page.

For a second, Regina feels nothing but jealousy. Cold, hard, green jealousy hitting her like a freight train. And then anger. Hot, red anger for getting jealous. She has to reason to be jealous. They are obviously off the clock and they have every right to eat out.

She prays Emma doesn't see her, and if she does, she hopes the blonde doesn't acknowledge her existence. No such luck.

"Oh, hey, Dr. Mills."

Swan and Page stand side by side, but they aren't facing Regina's and Henry's booth. Instead, they wait at the counter, waiting for what seems like take out food.

"Hello, Swan. Page." She nods at them both, keeping her eyes on Henry as he shovels a bite of his burger into his mouth. She looks down at her salad, suddenly not very hungry. She'll get a to-go box and eat it for lunch tomorrow.

"Hi!" Henry waves, but doesn't seem to pay much attention, instead concentrating on eating his rather large meal. He happily draws in the children's menu, too, not caring for the lines and the games, instead opting to scribble all over the picture.

"Hello, Henry," Emma gives Henry a small wave, and a happy smile. She looks tired, maybe a little . . . wistful. Page excepts the take out bag Granny gives the two ladies, and starts to head towards the door.

"Bye!" Henry calls after them, giving another little wave and dipping a French fry in ketchup. (Well, that certainly wasn't awkward at all.)

"She has pretty hair," he says absentmindedly, now dunking the ketchup covered fry in his Mac n cheese.

"She does, doesn't she?"

~()~

Something isn't right. Regina knows it the second she steps foot inside the hospital the following day.

The nurses gather around their station. They all appear to be hooked on a story, though to what, she doesn't know. She can hear a few words, but they make no sense.

"-like totally broke her heart-"

"She doesn't have a heart-"

"I heard-"

"That it was just friends with benefits-"

Regina ignores all of it and waits for her lackeys to meet her. Only Swan and Blanchard arrive. Regina eyes narrow, scooping over the hospital hallway before glaring down at Blanchard. "Where's Sea?"

"Sick," Blanchard answered. She shares a look with Emma, something that doesn't go unnoticed. "Something about bad sushi." Emma nods her head in agreement.

So that obviously wasn't the whole story. Why were her interns keeping things from her? Did they think her stupid, that she wouldn't know they weren't telling the full truth? Never mind though, the day was just beginning and she didn't have time to wonder or have her interns just stand around any longer.

"Fine," she sighs. "Follow me. We have a lot to do today." She takes them to the ER. She stations Blanchard inside to work on sutures, but takes Swan outside to wait for the oncoming ambulance. "83 year old woman, suddenly fainted at her restaurant. EMTs said she fell and cut her head on the counter. They're worried it might need stitches."

Swan takes in all the information with a silent nod. "How long until they arrive?"

"Five to ten minutes," Regina answers, taking a quick look at her gold watch. It was a birthday gift with Robin. She normally didn't wear it, but she had the overwhelming urge to do so today.

Perhaps it was a new leaf. She has been spending more time with Marian lately, and not feeling as guilty. Wearing the watch showed she didn't feel as guilty any more, that she could use the gifts Robin gave her and accept them, use them, and appreciate them.

"Swan?" Regina asks once her brain drifts back. She stands straight and makes sure to pop out her chest, giving off the impression that whatever she's going to ask, Emma better pay close attention.

"Yes, Dr. Mills?" Swan looks hesitant; she scuffles her weight from foot to foot and refuses to meet Regina's eyes.

"Why is Sea really not here?"

There's a pause, a stretch of silence, where Regina really thinks Emma is going to lie to her again. But after a few moments, Emma admits,

"Her and De Vil . . . broke up, I guess. I really don't know what to call it."

Regina's heart feels heavy and she doesn't know why. It's not like she was particularly fond of Sea, in fact, sometimes she found her downright annoying. But damn it, Sea was her _intern_ and despite what people think, she wasn't evil. She wasn't the Evil Queen-and yes, she knew all about that little nickname. She had a heart and if something was going on with her intern, she wants to know.

"And how do you know this?" she asks, keeping her voice leveled.

Emma shrugs, still not meeting Regina's eyes. "It's all over the hospital. Everyone knows."

"And so what?" Regina snaps, crossing her arms. Suddenly, she could hear the sirens of the incoming ambulance. "She decided not to come because she was heart-broken?"

"I don't know," Emma answers, finally meeting Regina's eyes. "I don't know the full situation, okay? Maybe she loved De Vil and De Vil didn't love her. Maybe it's the other way around. Maybe somebody wanted a relationship with someone else. I don't know the full story."

Regina stands still, peering down at Emma and forcing herself to breathe through her nose. She nods eventually, because the ambulance arrives and she really doesn't have time for this conversation.

The ambulance comes to a stop and two EMTs burst open the door. "83 year old woman, fainted at her diner. Needs stitches to her head and an IV immediately," says the EMT with sandy blonde hair, but Regina can only focus on the patient.

"Granny," Emma and Regina both breathe at the same time.

They both been to Granny's, obviously. They both know Granny personally. The old woman lays silently on the gurney, bleeding out of her head. She looks pale and withered, causing Regina to almost stumble but she caught herself.

"Let's move!" she snaps at Swan. "Now!"

~()~

Doctors are told not to operate on family. Friends are tricky. Doctors are advised not to operate on friends, either, but some do anyway. Regina decides that if Granny needs surgery, Regina will be the one to operate. Well, she's only a resident, but she'll make damn sure she's in the operating room.

They get Granny set up in an ER room. Regina orders Swan to set up an IV while she does the stitches. Swan looks horrified, and Regina realizes it's her first patient that she knows personally. Luckily she doesn't stall and Granny is moved from the emergency room to a regular room in no time and then her next of kin is called.

Regina leaves Granny for her other patients, safe with the knowledge Granny is resting and Swan is contacting the kin now. Only, Swan finds her five minutes later, a worried look on her face.

"Did you call the family?" Regina asks immediately.

Sometime there were problems with next of kin. Sometimes families didn't stay in touch with the other family member, or they were angry with them, or something happened ending with the kin simply not caring. It was sad, but it happens. Regina hated when it did.

"Yes," Swan answers, looking hesitant. She shifts her weight from foot to foot before saying, "You know Nurse Ruby? Ruby Lucas? She's listed as Granny's next of kin."

Regina breathes in sharply through her nose. She knew Granny had a granddaughter who used to help at the diner a lot, but she left because she got some fancy job. Apparently being a nurse was that job.

"Go tell her personally, then," Regina orders. "Get her to Granny's room. Whatever she's doing, she can get someone to cover for her."

Swan nods and takes off. Regina decides she needs a bath, and that she'll take one as soon as she puts Henry to bed.

She heads to her other patients, making her rounds before her two hour surgery.

Ten minutes later, there's a commotion coming from one of the rooms. Regina hears it's her patient and takes off, wondering if one of hers is going to die.

Nobody is dying, it turns out. Instead Nurse Ruby is going head-to-head with the infamous Granny Lucas.

"Granny, please!"

"No!" Granny is sitting in her bed, glaring hard at her granddaughter, arms crossed. "I don't care, Ruby!"

"I'm worried about you!" Ruby screams, face red and angry. "You fainted from overworking! One shift, Granny, just let me take one shift a night!"

"No!" Granny screams right back, spittle falling from her face. "You're doing good, Ruby! You finally have a good job! You don't need the diner holding you back!"

"Okay, hey!" Regina finally steps in. She knows this is a private matter, but they're screaming in an hospital room, and Granny really doesn't need the stress. "I understand this is an important conversation, but Gra- Ms. Lucas does not need the stress. She needs rests, in fact."

Ruby takes a deep breath and nods sharply. "This isn't over," she tells Granny, and swiftly leaves the room.

~()~

It starts to rain later in the day, and although it's cliche, it totally sets the mood. Her next four hours are spent in surgery, and they almost lose the patient: a fifteen year old girl who had her whole life ahead of her. She was just a little girl, she couldn't die. They save her but it takes an extra two hours. When they finish up, Regina is exhausted and hungry, and her day is nowhere near over.

Luckily she has time to scarf down some food before the next big thing happens. (But she does it politely and with manners.)

She's called the ER to help a guy with a pole stuck through his stomach. That's when a screaming two year old with a broken arm and bloody nose comes through the door, along with his yelling parents.

Regina swears and orders nurses to help with the baby. Swan and Blanchard are immediately on them, asking questions and guiding the baby to a table. "How did this happens?" Blanchard demands, rapidly handing over scissors to the leading doctor.

Regina watches, would love to give insight, but she's too busy concentrating on the young-drunk-man with a pole through him.

"It's all his mother's fault!" screams the father. He wears a sharp business suit and expensive shoes. The mother wore a white sundress, hair pinned in curls to her head. They obviously had money and obviously had some problems. "It's her job to watch him!"

"I can't watch him alone, Richard!" screams the mother, her arms frantic as she waves them around. "God, it's not just my job to watch him!"

"I work! I can't-"

"YOU'RE ALWAYS WORKING!" the woman screeches at the top of her lungs. She's attracting attention, and it's really not doing any help. Regina tries to concentrate on her own patient, but the yelling gets worst.

"GOD, RICHARD, IT WOULD IT KILL YOU TO ACTUALLY PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR FAMILY?"

"HEY!" Swan screams, causing everyone in the ER to look at her. "YOUR BABY IS ON THE COUNTER AND I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. YELLING WON'T MAKE IT BETTER. I DON'T CARE WHOSE FAULT IT IS-"

"HIS! I ASKED HIM TO WATCH THE BABY FOR FIVE MINUTES!"

"MAYBE I SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO IF YOU DIDN'T LEAVE TO HAVE PHONE SEX WITH YOUR STUPID BOYFRIEND!"

It's at the point Swan had stepped in to put some distance between the fighting couple that the woman swings at the husband. Instead she hits Swan, and Regina watches in horrified zapped attention as Emma's eyes slam shut from the fist in them. Not being able to see must prove difficult to walk, because Emma trips and goes falling to the floor.

Regina gets a rush of deja vu when the sound of Emma's head connecting to the floor echoes throughout the room.

Really, there's not enough doctors for this shit.

~()~

Emma lays in a bed, her heart monitor even and steady. She's been past out for two hours now, and Regina is just now checking on her. The man with the pole through his stomach is still in surgery, but the baby left thirty minutes ago. His arm is all banged up and the nose, while sore and bruised, was not broken. The parents apologized profusely, especially the mother, but Regina found it hard to forgive them. Emma got hurt.

She realizes it shouldn't bother her that much. She'll be fine. She didn't even have a concussion. So why was Regina so worried? It's not like Regina and her were friends. In fact, she's pretty sure Swan doesn't even like her.

She thinks hard of the way she felt when she saw Lily and Emma together the past few weeks. Anger. She hated every time they kissed or hug. She hated the way Emma seemed to hang on to every word Lily said, the way Emma got a big dopey smile on her face whenever she was just _around_ Lily. What did Regina feel when she saw them together at Granny's?

Jealously.

It's a startling realization, one that has Regina shooting straight to her feet from her spot in the chair. _Jealousy. _Whenever she saw Emma and Lily together, she got jealous.

It's ridiculous. She's not jealous. She can't be. She doesn't like Emma. Swan is too proud, too loud. She's unsure of herself half the time, and not a day goes by where Regina doesn't feel utterly infuriated with her.

But-

But Regina likes the way Emma's whole face lights up when she does something for the first time. She loves the way Emma pulls her hair into a ponytail during surgery. She loves the way Emma wears those impossibly tight skinny jeans before she changes into her clothes.

She loves when Emma smiles, loves when she laughs. She's so beautiful-

"Holy shit," Regina whispers.

No, she can't be. This wasn't happening.

Not again.

No.

She could not like Emma Swan. Not in that way.

She looks down to Emma's sleeping face, loves the way the reflection from outside brightens it. No, Regina could not like Emma Swan.

Emma groans and starts to stir. Regina books it out the room.

~()~

She takes the rest of the day off and picks Henry up early from daycare. He's ecstatic, asks if they can go to Granny's again. She tells him no, that Granny's is a special treat. In reality, she doesn't want to explain to him what happened to Granny, considering he'll just get worried and upset even though Granny is perfectly fine.

"Come play with me, Momma!" Henry screeches when they get home, his toys already out and a Iron Man doll clutched tightly in his left hand. "You can be Thor!"

She's really not in the mood to play Avengers with her son. She just wants to put him to bed early and then crawl into her bath, but she knows she can't simply do that, so she kneels on the floor between the couch and the TV and picks up a blonde doll wearing a red cape.

She plays dolls with Henry for an hour or so, her back strained and stomach cramped. Her stomach is so shot with nerves, because while she played, she couldn't keep her mind off Swan and her . . . predicament.

"Can we have spaghetti?" Henry requests, and Regina's too tired to argue, so she starts the sauce and noddles.

He gets sauce everywhere and needs a bath. She hoped he'd be tired by the time he's done, but he needs to be read three books before he falls asleep. Finally, Regina can relax in her bath. She missed taking a bath. They were a safe place and the water always felt wonderful on her aching muscles.

Except now all her thoughts about Emma comes rushing back, causing Regina to groan and drop her loofah. Regina hasn't been with anyone since Robin, and she was fine with that. She was always so busy with her son and her job, she just didn't have time to date. But she won't lie and say she didn't miss the contact.

She missed waking up being held. She missed being softly kissed under the moonlight, the words of love, the domestic things. She missed it all, and she can't deny Emma's face as she pictures them all.

Sighing, Regina finishes washing herself and dresses in her pajamas. She really needs some sleep.

~()~

The next few days are hard. Regina doesn't avoid Emma, but she tries not to get too close, either. She's professional and smooth, making sure she never touches Emma, especially when she passes her stuff.

She's aware she's coming off cold, but she can't help it. She needs to distance herself away from Swan until those damn feelings go away.

One day after Regina almost tripped trying to avoid Emma, Robin corners Regina inside an empty On-Call room. He gets right to the point, eyes narrowed and finger pointed at her. "Do you like Dr. Swan?"

Regina humphs. She hasn't admitted it to herself out loud, why the hell would she admit it to Robin? "Don't be stupid. Of course I don't like her. Why the hell would you think that?:

"Cut the crap, Regina." Robin sits down on a bed and gestures Regina to do the same. She doesn't, and continues to stand, arms crossed. "You've been glaring at Swan whenever she's with Page, and now you're refusing to speak to her. Hell, you won't even touch her. I thought at first you were mad, but then I notices how jealous-"

"I'm not jealous!" Regina screams, then quickly lowers her voice. She pauses, cocks her ear to check to see if anybody heard her. When no one comes in, she breathes a little bit in relief. "I don't see how this any of your business, Dr. Hood, and I don't think this conversation is very professional." She knows it's cruel to bring in the professional part of their relationship, because their so much more than just co-workers, but Regina really doesn't want to talk about this with Robin-with anyone.

"Regina-" Robin tries to say something, but Regina just glares and leaves the room.

Her heart is beating so fast, she's afraid it'll jump out of her chest. (Even if she knows that's not medically possible.) She really needs to find a way to stop liking Emma Swan, because she can't, she really can't.

Suddenly her brain is filled with the last person she was with and it's becoming so hard to breathe. She gasps, forces air to get through to her lungs, leans against the wall of the thankfully empty hallway. She slides slowly to the floor, her mind already lost.

He didn't even want to see his own son.

_"Is he even mine?" Daniel demands, arms crossed, glaring hard at Regina, and Regina had never felt so scared. _

_"Of course!" Regina yelps, one hand going to rest on her pregnant belly. "Daniel, I would never cheat on you! I swear, this was all before you!" _

_"How can I believe you?" he demands. "You lied to me about Robin, how can I ever believe you?_

_"I never lied to you!" Regina screams, eyes filling with tears. "You asked me in the beginning if I had anything going on with Robin, and I told you no! We weren't sleeping together then! It was a one time thing and it was before I even met you!"_

_"You still should have told me, Regina! I would like to be told if you slept with your best friend!" _

_They fight for another ten minutes, both screaming about what's right, what's wrong, what Regina should have done, shouldn't have done, until it all culminates to Daniel leaving. _

Gentle hands shake Regina's shoulders, and she comes face to face with Emma Swan. She would like to say she didn't yelp in surprise, but that wouldn't be true.

"Are you okay, Dr. Mills?"

She will be if Swan stopped touching her. "I'm fine," Regina manages to rasp out, forcing herself to stand on shaky legs. "I was just, uh, taking a short rest and you startled me." It sounded bad even to her own ears.

However, Swan surprises her by saying, "Oh, okay. Er, I'll just-" She points down the hallway with her thumb, offering Regina an awkward smile. (It definitely doesn't make her heart stutter, nope. Not at all.) "See you later, Dr. Mills."

Regina watches her walk away and tries not to follow after her.


	9. Chapter 9

**My tumblr is theimpossiblewolf I answer any and all questions about my fanfiction over there, and I give updates on how the chapters are going and where I'm at on writing them. I take prompts over there as well, so send in any if you have some. **

Emma grunts as her fist lands on the punching bag, knocking it bag a few inches. Her lungs scream for air, and Emma allows herself to suck in a few harsh breaths before landing another blow. It makes a loud SMACK as it hits the bag, the sound echoing throughout the gym. The apartment building came with a gym, but Emma's been busy the past month and every time she went to check it out, it had been really crowded.

Emma liked to work out by herself. Today she couldn't sleep, so when four rolled around, Emma decided to give up on and check out the gym. It was nice. There were six treadmills, ellipticals, lifts, balls, ropes, a rock climbing wall, and a few other things. For an apartment building gym, it was pretty snazzy. But the most important part? It was empty.

She punches the bag a few more times, before stopping to take a water brake. She unscrews the cap of a water bottle and doesn't hesitate to drown half the bottle. Sweat is dripping in her eyes, but Emma doesn't mind. She feels energetic. She's hyped! She hasn't felt like this in . . . Well, she doesn't know how long it has been, but she's knows it's been overdue.

She sets the bottle down and re-wraps her fists and settles on the bag again. Truthfully, Emma loved all gym equipment, but the punching bag was her favorite. It got her anger out in an easy way, and most importantly, it let her think. Sure, the treadmill offered that, but she was too busy trying not to fall off it or with weights, trying not drop them on her feet.

For the punching bag, she just watched keeping her thumbs on the outside and not tucked inside her fist and then she thought. Currently, her thoughts were on Lily. She really liked Lily. Lily was sweet but had a wicked sense of humor. She was super pretty, but that wasn't everything, either. They actually had a lot in common. Lily had a family growing up, if you could consider it a family. Lily's father was never in the picture, but her mother lost her when she was a baby. "Apparently she was always high on drugs. The neighbors would hear me scream for hours because my mother was too high to even remember her name, let alone remember she had a baby."

She was given up for adoption and she was luckily adopted by a nice looking couple but they only adopted her as a last resort or something like that. They could never really connect with her and she was very lonely. Like stated, Emma could relate. She hadn't told Lily everything, but it was a lot like that. Emma never had parents to hold her, to tell her they love her. There was Ingrid, but she left, too. (They all left eventually.)

So yeah, Emma had a lot in common with Lily. They were both doctors, too. They understood how hard being a doctor really was, and how busy each other were. Also, Lily got along with her friends! She was, in retrospect, perfect and Emma could totally see something more coming out of whatever they had together.

But something just wasn't settling right with Emma and she had no clue why.

She drove a punch at the punching bag, and had to take a step back when the bag came flying back at her. It was driving her nuts. Lily was relatively perfect, so what was wrong?

Emma gives one last punch to the bag before stopping and taking in big breaths. In through her nose, out throw her mouth. She struggles to get her breathing under control for a few minutes and then drinks some more water. Her watch tells her it's six and that she's been up for two hours now. It's time to get ready for work, so she makes sure all the equipment was the way she left it and turned off the lights.

Her shower feels like heaven and her muscles definitely thank her. The heat feels so good on them, like a personal massager herself was pulling the muscles and making Emma feel amazing inside.

She's disappointed with how quickly it seemed her shower ended but she would be late for work if she stayed any longer. After she dresses and eats a quick breakfast, she leaves for work. Mary Margret had a later shift, so Emma was pleased not to have to hear her friend's crappy radio music. Seriously, it was always the same songs: all pop, all rich, all obnoxious.

The hospital is calm when Emma enters it, but it's still early morning, and while all the drunks are gone, the sick children have not waken up yet. Emma really loved the early morning shifts. Yes, it was a bitch to wake up early sometimes, but, in the morning, you either got the most wildest, more dangerous cases, or no case at all. And yes, she was a doctor so sometimes it was a bore, but other times, the morning was just the best.

"Good morning, Swan."

It's not Dr. Mills that greets her, but Dr. Jones. She hadn't really got to talk to him a lot since she started working, and from what she heard, he was quite an ass, but Emma wasn't going to judge him without getting to know him.

Still. She's a little upset it's not Mills that greets her. (And that's only because she like normal, she likes her usual schedule and any interruptions makes her upset.)

"Hello, Dr. Jones," Emma says, a little confused.

Her face must show it too, because Jones says, "Mills called off. You're with me today." He sends her a sly wink and Emma barely resists the urge to roll her eyes as her stomach sinks. "So, let's get started, shall we?"

~()~

Killian Jones was as much as an ass as Emma heard but he's still a good doctor. He invites her into the delivery room to scrub in on a woman who is to give birth to twins.

"Don't mothers usually opt for C sections when pregnant with twins?" Emma asks as she roughly runs a sponge under her fingernails.

Dr. Jones shrugs. "It's up to them and the babies are doing just fine so I didn't see why not."

Emma was never particularly interested in babies and birth and vaginas (in the sense off giving birth, anyway) but there's something sort of calm in it all. Not in the quiet kind of way, because labor apparently hurts, and all she hears is yelling and, "I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL CUT OFF YOUR BALLS IF YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT ME SQUEEZING YOUR HAND ONE MORE TIME!" But it's calm in the way that it's always the same, even when it's not. With the rest of the ER, you have no idea what's going to happen, no idea what's the case and what you should do. But it's always the same here: delivery, C section, some kind of surgery to fix a baby or fetus-it's always on mothers, babies, or fetuses, nothing else.

Emma finds that she's quite likes it, even if the company is less than suburb. For starters, Jones is a major gossip. He brings up the "rumors" of Lily and her, and Emma actually does groan this time.

"If if was any of your business-" she starts, but Jones raises his hands in surrender and sends her a wink before sliding through the glass door, calling a, "You coming?" over his shoulder.

The mother was in her early twenties. She was very young, dark skinned, and beautiful curly hair that was pulled into a tight ponytail. Beads of sweat were pouring down her skin, and she was obviously in pain, but brightens when Dr. Jones enters the room. (Emma isn't sure why.)

"Hello, Abby. This is Dr. Mills. We're just about ready to begin, okay?" Jones patiently waits for an answer and Abby hesitantly nods.

"I guess." She pauses and her eyebrows furrow together. "I'm actually very scared," she admits. "I'm all alone."

For the first time, Emma notices the lack of a father or girlfriend or friend or anyone there for her. It's just Abby, and that's really sad.

"You're not alone," Emma says before she can stop herself. She knows how terrifying it is to be alone. It's also sad. Nobody is there to hold your hand, or snuggle with a blanket during movie night, or stargaze at the sky. Being alone sucks and Emma will be damned if she lets anyone feel that way.

"I'm here for you," she says, gently, making sure to make eye contact with the young girl. "Dr. Jones is also here. Everything is going to be okay, alright?"

Abby hesitates but eventually gives Emma a small, "Okay." And then a contraction hits and Abby cries out, hands gripping at the bars of the bead, tears glistening in her eyes, the beads of sweat making their way down her body.

"It's time!" Dr. Jones says gleefully.

Emma sends him a glare but the truth is, she's quite excited. She loved being in any kind of OR room, even if it was delivery. And hey, giving birth is hard. It takes skill. She tries not to show just how excited she is as she gets in position.

~()~

Afterwards, when Emma is scrubbing at her hands, and Abby is holding her two newborn boys, she takes a minute to consider what she wants to do as her specialty. It's not something she really thought about yet, but as the hype of the delivery room is still in her, the cries of happiness, the tears of joy, she can't help but wonder. She feels like she's in high school again, trying to figure out what she wanted to do afterwards. She always thought there wasn't much for her, just another orphan who'll probably end up on the streets, but she wanted to prove everyone wrong and look where she is now.

She didn't want to wait until last minute again to decide. She wanted to start to think about it seriously, and now that they are a couple months into her internship, it's time to get down to it.

Jones is silent but grinning as he too scrubs out. "So, Swan, you thinking of becoming a gynecologist or at least a pediatrician?" He says it casually, but Emma noticed how excited he seemed to be with her there.

She shrugs and carefully rinses off all the soap. "I like it a lot," she responds slowly, but then decides to be truthful. "But I don't think I would like to be it for the rest of my life. I'm still undecided."

Dr. Jones rinsed off his own hands and turned to look at her as he grabbed some paper towels. "I didn't know what I wanted my specialty to be until literally the last week of my internship. Do you know Dr. Hood?"

Of course, Emma thinks. He's Regina's 'best friend'. She doesn't say this aloud though, instead she nods. "Yeah, well," Jones continues, "he ended up switching after his internship. It's okay not to know what you want, Swan. It'll eventually come to you."

Emma doesn't say anything to this, just nods, but apparently that's okay, because Jones carried on talking. "Speaking of decisions, you and Lily, huh?"

Emma's nostrils flare as she rolls her eyes this time. "Like I said before, if it was any of your-"

"It's funny," Jones says, firmly interrupting Emma, which just makes her even more pissed off. "I never pegged you for Page. I always thought you liked Mills."

Emma, who had started to leave the room, is so startled that she stops short. She slowly turns around, eyes wide as she glares at Jones. "And why the hell would you think that?"

It's quite a thing to assume. And intern with another intern? Just fine. An intern with another resident? One thing. An intern with an attending? Scandalous, but possible? An inter with their own resident? That's a giant no-no.

Jones is smirking, like he knows he got the underhand. (He possibly did.) "You're telling me you never thought of Mills in that way?"

Emma snaps. "No, of course not!"

She hadn't really. She knew Dr. Regina Mills was very beautiful. She was also highly intellectual. She never made Emma feel dumb or stupid. If there was a problem, she calmly walked her through it instead getting angry. Emma tried to think of a time where Mills actually yelled and couldn't come up with anything. She got closed, and she raised her voice, and sometimes she did shout, and she yelled at patients of to get someones attention, but never directly at Emma for any other reason than to get a move on.

Mills was a great doctor, pretty, and smart but that didn't mean Emma liked her in a romantic sort of way.

"Really?" Jones continues, having watched the confrontation of it all struggle over Emma's face. "Maybe I just misread everything then." He shrugs and pushes pass Emma, leaving the room with a flourish of his white doctor coat.

She really needs her punching bag.

~()~

"You bought me lunch?" Lily blinks, looking down at the brown paper bags in Emma's hands. Her brown eyes look especially beautiful in the winged eyeliner Lily chose to wear today. (She always looks beautiful, though.)

Emma grins and leans down, pecking Lily's cheek, before thrusting the bag into her hands. "It's nothing much," she admits. "It's actually just the cafeteria food, but I had them bag it so you wouldn't have to leave her work."

She hands over the bag, which contains a wrapped turkey sandwich, a yogurt cup, a juice box, and a package of carrots and a small thing of ranch. She feels rather proud of the way Lily's eyes happily widen when she sees the contents. "Oh, Emma, thank you."

Lily gives Emma a rather thorough kiss, way more than a simple thank you kiss should be, but Emma returns it anyway. Her hands slide into Lily's hair, happy for the contact, for the distraction. Lily finally pulls away and sends the other girl a soft smile before sitting back down on her chair.

"I'm just running tests . . . simple things. Eat lunch with me?" Lily asks. "We can share half a turkey sandwich."

Emma laughs but shakes her head. "I'm sorry, Lily, I have to get back to work. Jones is keeping me on a tight leash."

Lily raises an eyebrow at 'Jones.' "You mean Dr. Killian Jones? You're with him?"

Nodding, Emma responds with, "Yeah. Mills called out sick." Before Lily can press harder, Emma's pager goes off. She groans and gives Lily one last kiss. "I got to go. I'll see you when I can."

She gives Lily a smile as she rushes out the door.

Jones is already waiting for her in a separate hallway, but this time with Mary Margaret and Sea. God, Ursula looked like crap. Giant bags lined her eyes, her hair a knotted mess, her form limp and skinny. Her eyes were cast down, hands restless, seeming having nowhere to go.

Emma feels bad. She still didn't know the full story of what happened between her and De Vil. She never was one for gossip, but she was dying to know. Did De Vil break up with her? Were they even dating? Was Sea in love with De Vil?

This is why interns should date interns. Or, better yet, a part in the back of Emma's brain says, don't date coworkers.

Which is very silly because her and Lily are having no problems. They are, sort of, perfect.

"Good, you're all here!" Jones claps his hands together and sends them a sly smirk. "Follow me, ducklings!" He laughs like a maniac and spins on his tail.

Emma shares a look with Mary Margret and Sea before shrugging and walking fast to catch up with Jones.

"Ducklings?" Mary Margret mouths, following after Jones.

~()~

Jab, jab, block, block, jab. Pause. Repeat. Pause. Repeat. Pause. Repeat.

The vigorous activity leaves Emma panting for breath. Her lungs work in overtime trying to catch up. She's well aware she smells like sweat, and gym equipment, and her arms ache with every twitch, but the adrenaline is rushing through her, like a tilde wave, like a predator hunting its pray, like the calm before the storm. It's the most wonderful feeling.

Her hair is slick with sweat, stuck to her forehead, and Emma takes the time to push it out of her eyes. Her hands hurt but she's not quite ready to stop just yet. She unwraps her hands and groans. Her hands make a fist to try to work out the cramps, but she gives up and just shakes them. It hurts, but in the most delicious way.

The door opens and her head snaps around to see David enter the gym. They both make a surprised sound as they share at each other in shock.

"Emma," David says eventually. "I didn't know anyone used the gym at this time."

It's was 5:43 in the morning again, but Emma didn't have to be at work until two p.m. today.

"Me too," Emma agrees. "It was empty yesterday morning . . . " And she only started using it yesterday, too.

David nods. "Yeah, I worked early yesterday, remember?"

Emma does remember. They passed each other in the hall, said hi and waved, but they were too busy to eat lunch together, and they left at separate times. She nods slowly. "So then do you usually work out at this time?"

"Yeah, that or jogging," David replies, scratching his head and looking quite awkward. "I like this time because-"

"No one else is here," they say together, and they share a small smile together.

An awkward silence hangs in the air.

"Umm." Emma rubs the back of her neck, then grimaces at the sweat that coats her fingers. She absentmindedly wipes it on her shorts. "I can leave if you want-" she offers at the same time he says, "If you want, I can-"

They break off again, this time in laughter that's just a little less awkward. It's not like Emma and David weren't friends, because they really were. They did runs together, and they ate lunch together. He got her, he understood things about her. They could talk for hours on end if they had the time. He got them food, made sure they ate on long shifts. He was nice and he gave the best advice. With a start, Emma realized she trusted David.

So yeah, of course they were friends, but Emma never hung out with David outside the hospital, unless you counted that time where they all had to meet in the lobby in the middle of the night, but Emma doesn't really count that. She's been out with Mary Margret once or twice . . . maybe once? She couldn't honestly remember if she hung out with M&amp;M more than once.

They lived in the same apartment building; there was no reason for Emma to be so awkward with David right now. She should have hung out with him or Mary Margret more outside work. Why hadn't she?

Emma purses her lips and shrugs. "I don't mind if you stay," she says eventually.

He actually looks surprised. "Really?"

She shrugs. She's surprised to find that it's true-she doesn't mind. "Of course. We are friends, right?" And maybe she asks that question to assure herself, but no one will ever know.

"Great. I promise you I won't bother you much- I mostly run treadmill."

"I think I'll join you actually, if that's okay."

"Yeah, that'd be great." He looks so much like a golden retriever-it actually reminds her of Thor from the Marvel movies.

They pick treadmills next to each other and set out the pace. They are up hill a little, but they aren't going too fast. (Unanimously they make a silent vote not to try to out run each other.)

David is silent next to her. He looks lost in his own thoughts the minutes he gets on. Maybe his treadmill was like her punching bag?

Emma concentrates on her feet; she was right, it's hard to get lost in thought on the treadmill. (For her, anyway.)

Unlike her friend, Emma is quite aware when thirty minutes go by, and isn't at all surprised when the thirty minute mark goes off on the treadmills. David, however, jumps. Emma watches as he turns off his machine and goes to wear he had set his bag on the ground. She does the same and together they take five minutes to get their breathing under control and to quench their thirst.

After a couple more minutes of silence, where they both seem to be lost as to what to do next, Emma hesitantly says, "You looked pretty zoned out there . . . Penny for your thoughts?"

David looks up at her, and his gaze is so piercing that she almost actually takes a step back. He seems to be debating on whether he should say something, but he must come to a conclusion because he says, "I was just thinking . . . about Mary Margaret."

Emma blinks, a small smile curving her lips. "Mary Margaret, huh? What about?" She has a pretty good idea what about, but she wasn't about to bring it up without David treading first.

David gives a short nod. "Yeah. Lately we've been hanging out for awhile now, and, I-um, really like her you know? But I don't-she might not-" He sighs roughly. "I'm not sure if she just likes me that way."

She almost laughs. There was no way in hell Mary Margret didn't feel the same way as him. Those two idiots were so in love it was ridiculous. How did they not know? Oh boy, Emma feels a headache coming up.

"I think she definitely likes you."

"Yeah, but as a friend. You know, I think I'm getting somewhere sometimes. I send her texts, buy her lunch, compliment her everyday, just about everything to let her know I like her, but she just doesn't seem to get it."

It's funny he's complaining about this, because Mary Margret had been basically doing the same thing and, well, the poor guy still didn't know she liked him back.

"David." Emma sighs and rubs her hand over her forehead, but she's smiling hugely. "Why don't you just ask her out?"

It's comical the way David stutters. "What? No-no, Emma! That-that's a bad-bad idea. That's possibly the worst thing ever-why-why would I do that?"

Emma rolls her eyes and tries to stare him down. "Because she likes you? Come on, you have to notice it."

But David shakes his head. "Even if she does," he says, "I don't want to mess up our friendship. I just-I really like her Emma. I don't know what to do."

Oh brother. This was apparently more complicated than she originally thought. "David," she says gently. "I think Mary Margret really really likes you." In fact, she _knows_, but she's not about to give her friend away, even if it is for a good cause. "Just ask her out."

There's a pause, where it seems like David isn't going to say anything, but after a few more seconds he slowly lets out the breath he's been holding. "You really think she likes me?"

Emma nods. "I do."

Pause. Then, "Okay. I'll ask her out."

The urge to squeal and jump up and down is great, but Emma is a grown adult and she manages to calm herself. She gives David a big smile instead. "The least she can do is say no." (But she highly doubted Mary Margret would.)

David repeats, "The least she can do is say no."

~()~

It Emma was excited to see Dr. Mills was back when she got to work, well, that was nobody's business but hers.

It was currently two, right on the dot, and Emma was already changed and everything. She found it was easier just to wear her scrubs to work and bring a change of clothes for when she leaves.

Sea was with her, but she would be finishing up her shift in an hour, and Mary Margret would come in when she left. David would be in two hours later, and they could all eat lunch together (perhaps with Lily, too.) Her shift looked like it would be good.

Only Mills apparently wasn't planning on having as good as a day as Emma. She glares the minute Emma arrives, her back straightening and her eyes were practically black. "Swan," she says, not even properly greeting her, "you're in the clinic."

She leaves the nurses station without another word.

What did Emma do now? She's angry that Mills is angry at her, because she couldn't recall doing anything wrong. In fact, this past week Emma had been the perfect intern! She followed all orders, didn't screw up, never argued, and she stayed out of Mills way except when needed! Isn't that what Dr. Mills wanted?

Emma's grumbling the whole way down to the clinic. She hadn't had the clinic in weeks. She loathed the place. It was just full of whiny children, teenagers needing condoms, and adults just making a big deal out of a cold.

Some of the people were just down right rude to her, and others were so stupid she just wanted to pull her hair out! And let's not forget the weirdos.

It was a cesspool of bacteria and stupidity. Emma's day wasn't supposed to go like this. Everything was going to be good. But no, she wouldn't let this ruin her day. She was a doctor and she was professional. She would take on the clinic with a positive, professional attitude. Her shift was going to be good, no matter what.

That was until she got her first patient of the day. It was your run of the male old woman, dressed in a big pink bath robes, hair in curlers, feet in slippers. She practically jumps when she sees Emma, and oh, this wasn't going to be good.

"Well it's about time!" the lady huffs. "Look at this place! It's crowded, and I've been waiting for an hour now!"

"We are very busy here, Ma'am," Emma says. They walk together to an empty cot, and the old woman doesn't hesitate to jump on it.

"I think I have skin cancer," the lady pronounces solemnly.

Emma blinks and it takes everything in her not to sigh. "Okay, well, first thing's first. What's your name and age?"

"I'm Milly Washknock," the woman says with a twist of her hand. "I'm 63. Look at this!" She slides up one sleeve of her bathrobe to discover a nasty red rash on her right arm. "It's skin cancer! I'm dying!" She proceeds to roughly scratch at the rash.

Emma slips on gloves and gently takes the old woman's arm. With her extent of knowledge, Emma can firmly deduce that it's . . . poison ivy.

"It's poison ivy," Emma states blankly, dropping the arm to get some anti-itch cream. She applies a smooth layer and then covers it in gauze. "You aren't dying," she says eventually to the shocked woman. "Go home, put some hydrocortisone or calamine on it when you get home. You will be fine, but try not to scratch at it."

~()~

By the time "dinner" rolls around, Emma is mentally exhausted. The clinic was definitely by far the place she hated _most _on the planet.

She slams her tray down on the cafeteria table, her jello jiggling with the force. Lily glances up, a cookie half in her mouth, before she slowly smiles. "Bad day?" she guesses.

"That's an understatement."

Emma notices Mary Margret and David aren't around, but doesn't think much of it. They're probably busy with their patients or cases or whatever.

Lily laughs and offer Emma's a cookie. It's her own, store bought, but better than the hockey pucks the hospital calls 'cookies.' Emma gladly accepts it and gobbles it down fast.

Around a mouthful, she says, "I just don't understand how people are so stupid!" But it comes out like, 'I con't punstand tow pape-owl r sto cupid!" She blushes and swallows roughly. "I don't understand how people are so stupid," she repeats with far less angst.

"I was in there all day," Emma says darkly, "and I'll have to go back once I'm done with my break. Lily, a lady came in there thinking she was dying of skin cancer. Do you know what she had? She had poison ivy. Poison ivy, Lily!"

Lily's just about dying of laughter. "Yeah, yeah," Emma grumbles. "Laugh at my pain but I'm telling you, it's horrible."

Lily, still smiling, reaches out and cups Emma's hand. "It's going to be okay, Emma."

"I just don't understand why she would punish me to clinic for my whole shift. Yeah, all interns have to put in clinic hours, but the whole shift? She's pissed at me and I have no idea why."

"Maybe she's just having a rough day and needs to take it out on someone," Lily offers, squeezing Emma's hand before reaching to take a bite of Emma's jello.

"Hey!" Emma protests, grabbing the cup once Lily took away her spoon. "I didn't say you could have any!"

"I gave you a cookie!"

"Jello is worth way more than a cookie."

"Oh is it?"

"YES! Don't touch my jello."

"Stingy much?"

"You can have my carrots." Emma pushes the small package of carrots towards her girlfriend, watching as the girl rolled her eyes.

This is nice, Emma thinks, looking as Lily laughs but accepts the carrots. It makes her . . . fuzzy. It's a pleasant feeling, like taking a nice warm bath after a cold hard day. It's okay, Emma likes it.

~()~

Her last hour of her shift, Dr. Mills sends her off to Jones. Really, Mills must be pissed at her because right now, she honestly didn't know what was worst: Jones, or the clinic.

Jones is an asshole, but at least she only has to be with him for an hour. Then she could go home and hopefully whatever the reason Mills is mat at her will go away.

"I saw you eating dinner with Page," Jones starts as they walk towards the room where a mother to be awaits.

"So? We are dating. Can you just stop this already?" Emma replies, then imedatly wishes she hasn't because she realized she just played into his little game.

"So do you love her?"

Emma stops short. She spins around, glaring fiercely at Jones. "That is none of your business," she snaps, eye wide with anger.

"So you don't, then?'

"We haven't even been dating that long!" Emma argues.

Jones shrugs and continues their walk again. "It doesn't matter how long a person dates another person-they'll know if they love them or not."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?'

They stop again. Emma doesn't know why he's playing into Jones' little game, but she has to admit, what he is saying is captivating her.

"I think you know what I mean." He forces her to hold eye contact before shrugging. "Like I said earlier, I just always thought you had a thing for Dr. Mills?"

"And like I said earlier, stop it. Why Regina anyway? Why the hell do you think I like her like that?"

"Just the way you look at her. Like a lost puppy."

Emma snorts and crosses her arms. "I don't have a thing for Dr. Mills." She glares hard at him. Why was she giving into his twisted game?

"Keep telling yourself, that." He starts to go, but Emma wraps her arm around his.

"Wait. Tell me why you think that." I need to know, she adds silently.

He looks at her then. He takes in her expression, and something must change because he actually answers. "You're always so caught up in her voice when she speaks . . . like nothing else can distract you. You try to follow everything she says, even if don't agree with it. You might pull up a fight, but you agree eventually because you don't want to disappoint her. Some might call it being a good intern, but you're so much more crass with other residents, still obedient but more willing to put up a fight.

"You always look at her like she's the sun to your dark sky. You want to impress her. Her opinion matters the most, even above friends." He shrugs. "Or maybe I'm wrong. As stated earlier, I'm good at reading people. But eh, who knows, Swan. Maybe you're right and you don't have a thing for Mills and you're perfectly happy with Page. Now, come do this sonogram."

Emma can only watch as he walks away, a confident swing to his hips.


	10. Chapter 10

**My tumblr is theimpossiblewolf. I'm sorry this chapter is so late. I was swamped with school work and more personal issues. I'm also sorry this chapter is shorter than usual, but I really like the place it ends at. **

It's just that Swan is so . . . Swan. Seriously, Regina didn't think Swan could get anymore . . . Emma-like. She thinks about it as she empties the cup of water onto Henry's head, using her other hand to block water out of his eyes. Her baby hums in contentment and swings his rubber duck around in the tub. He's adorable, but he's splashing water everywhere.

Henry was peaceful to look at. It wasn't like when she was a doctor, where she could just forget all her problems for a little bit, because with Henry, the problems were still there but they were so much calmer and less severe.

"Momma?" Henry stopped playing with his duck long enough to look up at his mother, before dunking the rubber toy back into the soapy water. "Are you sad?"

Regina pauses. She wonders what he means. She's not sad, not really. Just confused, perhaps, and maybe a little upset, but not necessarily sad. She didn't question how he picked up on it though. Henry always was good at getting a general census on her feelings and thoughts. Regina would like to think she was hard to read, and maybe it was, but when it came to her son, it was like she was an open book.

On one hand, she thinks about lying to him. He would most likely pick up on though, and worry or keep asking her until Regina finally made gave some half life.

On the other hand, there really shouldn't be a reason to lie to him anyway. He's a child, but that doesn't mean he doesn't pick up on things. She should tell him the truth.

But exactly what was the truth? Does she like Emma Swan? Possibly, but one possibly isn't enough to really effect her. It confuses her, yes, but she's not sad. Or is she? Is she sad she has a crush on Emma Swan?

It's not like she hadn't had crushes before. She's well into being an adult. She's not a kid anymore, either, so she knows how to handle crushes. You either leave them alone until they go away or you act on it. But maybe that's Regina's center problem, because she doesn't think she could do either of those-the latter for obvious reasons, and the former because, well, what if she didn't want it to go away?

She knows she doesn't want Emma to go away, but she also knows there's no way they would act on it, for many reasons. So why can't she just will this crush away? Well, she can, that's not the problem. Why doesn't she want to? Again, she knows there's no possible chance of ever acting on it. Perhaps it's the thrill. Emma Swan is beautiful and smart, and she''s strong, which if something Regina enjoys, of course. Maybe Regina likes the thrill of Emma Swan. She could lie to herself that that was the truth, but even she's not that dumb.

"Henry," Regina finally responds a few moments later. She stares at the water and half wishes it would swallow it up. She has a lump in her throat, but she knows what she's going to say now. She just has no clue in hell on how to go about it. She tries again, clearing her throat. "Henry, you know how sometimes you meet a person, and this person is just . . . amazing? They light up your world and every time you see them you just want to hug them or be around them, maybe you just always want to play with them or do things with them?"

Henry stares blankly at her, hands stilled on his duck. "No."

Regina snorts. Of course, what was she thinking? Henry was a child. He wouldn't understand, but in a way, that worked. She could rant to him and he wouldn't understand, but he would try. Kids often gave the best advice.

Not only that, but he was a constant. He was a constant in her life and whenever she talked to him, she knew her problems weren't constant. It was refreshing.

"Okay, let's take a different approach." She adjusts herself on the toilet and gets ready to start something else when Henry asks,

"What's an approach?"

Regina smiles and ruffles his hair. He's an adorable little boy, really. "Well, an approach is a way at doing something. For example, we can approach bedtime with a positive attitude or another approach is to be mad and not listen when it's time for bed. Do you understand?"

Henry blinks for a second, the duck now forgotten as it floats in the tub. He's serious for a second before he nods slowly. "Okay, Momma. Like, we can approach TV with a happy attitude, or you can approach it by turning it off?"

Regina laughs, a fully belly gruffle that brings tears to her eyes. Her little boy always seemed to make her laugh when she's upset. "Yes, something like that. Well, see, my approach is to try to stir the conversation in the way you will understand, okay?"

"Okay."

She's not sure what she's doing. She knows what she needs to say, but she's kind of scared on how Henry will react and on how to even just go at this. It's not a light conversation, but it's something Henry should know.

Regina clears her throat, even though she doesn't really have to. "Henry, do you know how some children have a mommy and a daddy, but some only have just a daddy or just a mommy?"

That's a good start, right? And Henry didn't seem lost. He nods and so she thinks it's safe to continue. "Well, sometimes, some kids have two mommies or two daddies."

Now he frowns, confusion evident. He picks up the dunk again, swinging in back in the water. "Two mommies?"

"Yes. Sometimes girls love girls and boys love boys, just like sometimes girls like boys. Do you understand?"

Henry nods again, not looking at her, but instead puts down that stupid duck and then finally, finally, picks up a new toy-a red truck. "I understand, Momma."

Well, that's good. At least he understands. That doesn't mean Regina knows how he feels and whether he'd be okay on what she says next, but her kid comes first, always first. If Henry had a problem, the first thing she'd need to do is work with it.

"So then how would you feel if you had two mommies?"

Her child finally looks at her. There's such dept in his eyes that Regina almost falls off the toilet.

"Okay, Momma. I don't like seeing you sad."

The sudden urge to squeeze him takes over Regina so she leans over and drains the tub. The water swirls down with a confused Henry not stepping out of the bath at his mother's request. Regina grabs a baby towel and raps it around him before hugging him tight.

"I love you," is all she says, because that's all she needs.

"I love you," Henry repeats, giggling.

There was more she wanted to say, more she wanted to discuss, but this was enough. This was always enough.

~()~

At work the next morning, Regina is in a very happy mood. Robin catches on right away. He stares at her all throughout the morning, until finally Regina has to call him out on it. "Stop looking at me like that," she demands, a spoonful of yogurt halfway to her mouth.

Robin decides to play dumb. "What are you talking about? I'm not looking at you." But he grins around his soda can and Regina rolls her eyes.

"If you have something to say, say it."

Robin takes a swig of soda before putting down the can and holding his arms up innocently. "Nothing, nothing."

Regina glares at him. "Out with it already."

"Alright, alright. You just seem... cheery, that's all."

She won't even deny it. She has been cheery. She only snapped at her interns once, Mary Margret didn't make her want to crawl into a ball and slowly die, and she managed to keep her cool when a patient yelled at her today.

"I'm just happy," Regina shrugs, not even bothering to hide her grin. She dips her spoon back into her yogurt cup, swallows, and says, "I don't know. I can't explain it. It's been good today, okay."

"Okay, I'm not judging you." Robin grins and they finish lunch in silence.

After lunch, Emma Swan comes running towards her, eyes wild and hair frantic. "Dr. Mills," she gaps, stopping in the hallway. She leans over and tries to suck air through her lungs, hands on her knees. Regina waits patiently until Swan can finally speak. "I think we misdiagnosed Sandy Bobbart."

Sandy Bobbart was a nine year old girl who often got bouts of high energy and acted out a lot. Her frantic parents brought her in and Regina was actually on her way to tell the parents there didn't seem to be anything wrong with her blood and the CAT scans and MRI came back negative for anything.

"What makes you say that?" Regina demands, crossing her arms. Swan better have some damn good proof.

"It just didn't add up. It's not typical behavior. I know the parents are going through a divorce but even then... I looked into it and I think Sandy has a tumor."

Regina rolls her eyes and sighs. Swan has wasted her time. She starts to walk again and says, "The CAT scan and MRI came back with nothing wrong, you know that. Now, maybe if you-"

"I think it might be an ovarian tumor." Swan had started to walk again with Regina, but then stops, forcing Regina to stop, too.

She looks at Swan, taking in everything about her, though she's not sure why. Regina never thought about an ovarian tumor, but she knows which one she's talking about. "Are you sure about this?"

Swan nods. "Yes, Dr. Mills. I'm positive."

Regina sighs. "Alright, get a sonogram ready."

~()~

Later that night, when Regina is getting ready to go home, she spots Swan also leaving the hospital. "Swan!" Regina calls, quickly wrapping her scarf around her neck and jogging to catch up with Emma.

Emma stops and turns around, her eyebrows furrowed. "Oh, hello, Dr. Mills."

They're standing at the entrance/exit to the hospital. It's late, and the only one around is the secretary at the front desk. She pays them no mind as she snores at her computer.

"I just wanted to say good job on finding that tumor," Regina says, but isn't quite sure that's all she wanted to do.

Swan blinks, clearly not expecting this. "Oh. Um, well, thank you."

"You're a good doctor, Emma." Regina takes a second to make Emma look her in the eyes. "I mean it. Don't doubt yourself."

Emma nods slowly. "I understand. Thank you." She's just, perhaps, a little bit speechless.

Regina gives Emma one final look before she starts to head out, but she stops when Emma calls out her name behind her. "Dr. Mills! Regina!"

It's the sound of her first name that makes Regina turn. "Yes, Emma?"

"I just, um-" Emma blushes and nervously runs a hand through her hair. "Yeah, I was just wondering, maybe you uh, wanna get a beer with me?"

Of all the things she expected, that was the last. Everything in Regina tells her to say yes, but she stupidly asks, "Don't you have a girlfriend?"

Regina would have to be both blind and death not to know that.

Emma blushes and nervously wrings her hands. "Yes, yes, I meant as friends. Drinking buddies, you know?"

Drinking buddies? Regina looks down at her watch. She should say no, keep it professional and just pick up Henry and go home. But she thinks about spending time with Emma and her stomach _leaps_. She thinks about drinking and laughing and talking and it's wrong, but it sends fire throughout her.

"Okay. Let me just call the daycare."

So she calls the daycare while Emma waits patiently, and says that her shift's running late. Then Regina and Emma take both their cars to the nearest bar.

~()~

Regina never actually been to the bar, but it's not what she suspected. It's bright, not too bright necessarily, but a lot brighter than some dingy bar or a dark club. It's nice in the way Regina wasn't expecting it.

Emma grins at her and leads her straight to the bartender. She orders two drinks, one for herself and one for Regina, which Regina is thankful because it's been far too long since she's been in a bar let alone had a bar drink.

"Do you come here often?" Regina asks once they're both seated with their drinks. She then cringes when she realizes how bad that sounds.

Seriously? Come here often?

Thankfully Emma laughs. "Uh, not really. Once before but I liked it. It's not too crowded, it's not too dark, and it's not too expensive, too. Eight dollars for a drink? I don't think so!"

They both laugh, and it's surprisingly not forced. She likes this. When was the last time she drank with a friend? A long time. Probably before Henry was even born, back in college. God that was so long ago.

"This is nice," Regina says aloud before she can stop herself, then cringes and covers it up by taking a long gulp from her drink.

Emma glances up. "What is?" she asks curiously.

Regina hesitates, but Emma looks honestly interested. "Well, just drinking with a friend." She shrugs, not looking Emma in the eyes. "I never really had a drinking buddy before. Before it was always drinking with a couple friends, but this is nice. Small. Intimate. I like it." She finishes with an awkward slurp of her drink that made her cringe.

Emma doesn't laugh or does anything that makes Regina want to bury herself six feet under. Instead, Emma grins a dorky insufferable grin and raises her glass. "To drinking buddies."

Regina clinks her glass against Emma's. "Drinking buddies."

They both drink. From then on, it only gets better. They talk about so many things. When Regina nurses her first while Emma's on her second and probably on her way to getting drunk. Regina knows she herself will stop after her second, but she's not sure about Emma. Regina still has to drive home and it's almost seven anyway. The daycare closes at nine, and then she'd have to get a babysitter.

But Emma smiles and drinks and Regina will probably have to drive her home.

"So tell me about yourself," Emma demands and Regina blinks in surprise.

"What do you want to know?" Regina asks.

Emma shrugs. "I don't know. Anything. Everything."

Regina purses her lips and thinks about it. It wouldn't really be professional to start sprouting out her life story but then again, this probably wasn't professional either. "I don't really know. I have a son. I went to Stanford for college. Um, really, Emma, there isn't much to know."

"What happened to Henry's father?"

The question comes out of the blue that Regina almost drops her glass. Emma quickly back tracks. "Shoot. That's so inappropriate. Don't answer that. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean-"

Regina holds up a hand. "It's fine. I just wasn't expecting it. He, uh, died."

It's Emma's turn to blink in surprise. "Oh. I'm sorry."

Regina struggles not to show how much it really effected her. "No, it's fine. It's been awhile now."

Emma nods and they lapse in silence. "I had a miscarriage."

It's so sudden that Regina is, once again, startled into almost dropping her glass. She looks up at Emma, who isn't looking at her. "Really?"

Emma's whole stance changes. She's no longer bubbly and confident, but uncertain and frightened. "Yeah. I was eighteen, just out of high school. I only knew I was pregnant for a week before it happened, way before I even began to think of what I was going to do. I guess the choice was made for me." She shrugs and finishes off her drink.

Regina sighs as Emma flags down the bartender for another. "Thank you for telling me," she says quietly.

Emma shrugs. "I thought it was only fair." Suddenly, the song that was currently playing switches to something with a much slower tempo. Emma shouts and stands. "This is one of my favorites." She suddenly pauses, her stance now awkward compared to just moments before. "Do you think it would be appropriate of me to ask you to dance?"

No, Regina supposes. It probably wasn't. But was anything of this appropriate? Co-workers could drink with no problem, and if Regina wasn't Emma's resident then even then it would have been fine, but Regina was Emma's resident and they were already pushing it.

But Emma looks like she's expecting Regina to say no, like she's ready to leave the minute Regina does. And Regina doesn't want to say no because if she says no then the night will be over and she doesn't want that. It's selfish, but she wants to continue this, wants to be with Emma as long as she could where there were no scrambling interns and screaming patients and crying children.

This, whatever this was, was _gold _and she was not about to let it go.

"I think it would be," Regina answers, watching as Emma's face falls, but she carries on, "but I'm not going to say no."

Emma's whole face brightens and she smiles. "Come on, then."

She grabs Regina's hand, and goosebumps arise on both their skin. Regina's stomach flutter's and it feels like electric waves going up her arms.

It's not that big in the first place, but the dance floor isn't really crowded, and there were only two other people on it. The song is still slow, so Emma wraps her arms around Regina's waist.

Regina jumps in surprised. Sure it was a slow song, but Regina really didn't make the connection they would dance like this. She supposes it makes sense. This is how all people slow dance.

"Are you okay?" Emma asks. She looks concern and Regina quickly shakes her head.

"No, no. It's just, uh, cold in here." It's the lamest lie ever, but Regina distracts Emma by wrapping her arms around Emma's neck.

They sway to the music, never once leaving each other's eyes. It's sensual. Regina couldn't remember the last time she danced like this. In fact, she doesn't think she ever did.

She swears Emma's eyes have stars in them. It feels like them as Emma lets go of Regina's waist only to grab her hand and give a little push. Regina knows enough to twirl, but Emma glides her. Regina doesn't fall because Emma is there to catch her. They do it again and tears form in Regina's own starry eyes.

When they're back to their usual position, Emma is much closer than before. If she sees Regina's tears, she doesn't say anything. She doesn't hold Regina close, doesn't wrap her arms around her so tightly you couldn't slip a magazine between them. There's room for Jesus, but just but.

The song ends, but neither notice. Emma twirls Regina two more times, and Regina's tears threaten to fall, but they never do. The second song has a much faster tempo, but they still continue to sway.

When the song ends though, Regina steps back. She sees the hurt in Emma's eyes, but she smiles. "Ready to go?"

Regina nods. She was wrong. She thought Emma would get drunk but she didn't. Neither of them did. "I'll settle the tab," Regina says, already moving to the counter.

Emma stops her with a hand on her arm. "No, I asked you to come here, it's only right for me to pay."

She slips back before Regina can argue, but she returns seconds later.

"Thanks for coming." Emma smiles and digs her feet into the ground. "You didn't have to, but-"

Regina leans up on her toes and kisses her.

There were only a few moments where Regina felt completely and utterly weightless. One, when she was six and her mother and father had told her she would be getting a baby sibling, when she would finally not be so alone.

Then, when Regina first got accepted into the college of her dreams. She knew she would finally be able to leave and never look back. Life was looking up. She was no longer trapped.

When she met Robin, she knew she found her best friend. She felt weightless and so happy. There was finally somebody who would always love her for her, who would always be there for her. She could rant to him and watch bad movies with him and go shopping with him because he was her best friend.

And then Henry was born. Henry, her beautiful baby boy where she knew she was responsible for another human being's life. She was going to have a little child who was going to love her and who she was going to love no matter what.

Finally, she felt it, right there in that moment, as she kisses Emma.

There were times where Regina felt her whole stomach drop, her heart chatter, her whole world stops in the way where all she could do was freeze, where everything fades to the background and nothing makes sense.

It happens once when three weeks after her mother and father tells her she's getting a baby sibling, they wake in the middle of the night to blood stained sheets and ramping stomach pain.

Then there was the time where Maleficent had told her they couldn't be more, because she didn't love Regina.

When she realized what she and Robin had done, where she realized she had betrayed Marian, her only other best friend.

Then when she realized Henry was unconscious. Her baby boy was sick and for that one thrill second she thought her baby was dead.

And now, when Emma pushes her away after only a few amazing seconds, she doesn't see the lights, doesn't hear the music. Her stomach hurts. Her world wasn't just stopped. It was spinning and spinning, so far out of control that it was off its axis and hurtling itself into the sun.

"I-I'm sorry," Emma stutters, looking like a dear caught in the headlights. "I-I'm dating L-Lily, remember? We can't-this isn't-I'm sorry."

Regina doesn't want Emma's sorry. She doesn't want Emma to look like she doesn't know what do.

She has to to go, now. But her legs won't work. All that will work are her eyes where Emma's own are so wide, fear easy in them. She takes a step back and shakes her head. "I'm sorry, Regina. I'm really am."

She flees, leaving Regina alone in a bar, wordless, worldess.


End file.
